Listmember Gary Bawden is touring the country in his gas-to-TDI conversion
done by Scott, which I got to see and drive this morning. Wow, what a
package and what a nice job by Scott. I took lots of pictures. The car is
waterboxer-quiet or quieter, and stronger than the waterboxer just a bit. He
was running power steering, too. He left the 85 4-speed gearbox in there and
it seemed fine to me on the highway. I bet he'd like to have my five speed
in there, though.

Anyway, very impressive job and very nice rig.

Gary had just left Unca Joel's neck of the woods after meeting with him and
John Rogers yesterday. We met up in a public picnic area near Decatur, not
far from me, and not long after we pulled in, here came a TDI jetta checking
out our vans. The driver turned out to be a TDI-conversion listmember Nathan
Smith who is living on a sailboat a stone's throw from where we stood.
Nathan has his dad's 82 NA diesel vanagon and a later westy he is outfitting
with porsche transmission, TDI conversion, and porsche brakes front and
rear. The porsche stuff came off of a 911 turbo wreck. Nathan is a
mechanical engineer who works at the Toyota V8 plant in Huntsville and has
access to anything to make anything.

The shop talk got so thick at one point that the fish quit biting. The
fisherfolk left and we had the place to ourselves.

I was able to stop a small fuel leak on Gary's injector with my scant but
diesel-specific onboard tool set.

Gary is now off to the northeast before returning home to Nevada. I'm sure
you'll hear more about it from him.

A very enjoyable morning.

Jim