On 8/24/11 11:13 AM, Ken Wilford wrote:
> As many of you know coolant hoses for the Vanagon are getting harder and
> harder to come by. If you own an 82 Diesel Vanagon or an early 83.5
> waterboxer you have been painfully aware of this for years.
>
> However now I have the opportunity to have new hoses made. These new
> hoses will be replicas of the original so fit should be exactly the same
> and they are made of more updated materials so life span should be on
> par with or better than original.

A whole bunch of diesel folks just went through this in the past year or
so.  The effort produced a silicone hose set, which I think fits only
one (and I am not sure which one) of the many diesel configurations of
coolant pipes, expansion tanks, and engine positions.  IMHO,
standardizing on the '82 hose set is a mistake.  The '82 coolant
expansion tank has been NLA for quite a while and is unlikely to ever be
reproduced.  Later diesels used the same expansion tank as the
waterboxer (maybe 1.9 only?) engines, and it would be far more helpful
to have hoses made to work with a readily-available expansion tank, as
well as mounting bracket to install that expansion tank in the van.

Mike