I feel your pain, Greg.  Although I haven't dealt with many coolant
problems, the main learning experience I have received from owning a
Vanagon is that when it rains, it pours - sometimes it doesn't stop
raining.  For five years before owning the Vanagon, I drove exclusively
air cooled VWs and the AC versions are much simpler and easier in almost
every way.  They don't have the same level of comfort as the Vanagon but
there are pros and cons to everything.

In my short year and a half of owning my Vanagon, I had to replace wheel
bearings, an oil cooler, brake parts and various electrical and general
parts - and thats only after about 5k miles on it.  Granted, any 25+
year old vehicle is going to need some love and care but the Omaha VW
Club already gave the van a resto in 2006-07 - and did a great job.

My suggestion is to stick with the dream of doing to bostig conversion.
I am in the works of doing a Subaru conversion myself.  I figure I'll
easily get one more good summer of trips out of the ol' 2.1 but when
winter hits again, the EJ22 goes in.  From what I found, most people who
do conversions are happier from it.  Their beloved vans get more power,
better fuel economy, and a greater reliability.  And that goes for
pretty much any conversion out there.  Especially for those of us in
cold weather climates, any ounce of reliability helps its weight in gold.

Best of luck,
Andrew

Greg Potts wrote:
> ..."And don't you eat that yellow snow".  Except in my case, it's green
> snow.
>
........
> If I had the $$$ for a Bostig conversion I would be on that in a
> heartbeat. But I think I will have to coax another year or two out of
> the WBX before I can make that happen.
>
> Advise, encouragements, and insight on how to bridge the gap would be
> greatly appreciated.