AFAIK, the Syncros all came with the metal housing, can't be certain.
Look at your wiring for the temp gauge sender to see if it is spliced
near the sender. The 2.1 2wd has 2 wires to the gauge sender while the
2.1 Sycro only has one wire. This is because the metal housing grounds
the threaded in type gauge sender so the sender doesn't need a ground
wire. The 2wd plastic housing uses a push in type sender with o-ring and
retaining clip, with a 2 wire connector for a ground wire plus a signal
wire.

AFAIK, the Syncro metal versions is a NLA part so VanCafe is having them
made.

Mark

Alistair Bell wrote:
> did all syncros come with a metal housing?
>
> reason i ask is my '86 does not have it, nor does the spare engine
> (which i do believe is from a syncro, i may be wrong).
>
> Alistair
> '86 syncro 7 passenger
> '82 westy, diesel converted to gas in '94
> http://www.members.shaw.ca/albell/
> http://shufti.wordpress.com
>
> On 17-Nov-09, at 8:20 AM, mark drillock wrote:
>
> Yes, the Syncro version is made of metal, like the one VanCafe offers.
> The Syncro one and the Van Cafe ones both use threaded 1.9 type temp
> senders so you need both of those too, and a slight wiring mod to use
> the threaded gauge sender, trivial.
>
> The top part of the housing is still plastic.
>
> Mark
>
>