A number of years ago I faced the same situation, in that the external
plastic piece had disintegrated.  I went to the local Pick a Part and
located a distributor from a mid-'80's Volvo 740 and simply swapped the
entire Hall device from one dist to the other.  Just had to make a little
wooden cradle in order to support the dist shaft while driving out the pin
on the drive.  Simple job really.  I think it cost me about $10 total.  Four
cylinder Saabs, BMWs, Volvos, Peugeots, VWs, etc. which use the same Bosch
dist body should all be suitable candidates.

On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 6:35 AM, Jim Felder <jim.felder@gmail.com> wrote:

> I was wondering after reading about John's search for an affordable hall
> effect sensor what other people had done. Our
> OEM sensors are an awfully expensive part to replace something that there
> are dozens of under my fingers as I type.
>
> This from the renown tencentlife on another discussion group:
>
> "The Hall unit in the Vanagon diz is only unique in its mounting and the
> output connector, but the sensor head itself could be replaced, or so I
> have
> been told, with an off-the-shelf pickup adapted to the mounting base and
> connector, which if true makes it going NLA not a big deal at all."
>
> So, if you concocted your own connector and a mounting base (these could be
> cast in resin or�are you listening John�made of ceramic) with a cheap
> sensor
> glued in. It may be possible to remove a vanagon sensor from crumbling
> plastic and glue it into such a mounting base.
>
> Anybody smarter than me who wants to figure out a cheap sensor that could
> be
> used?
>
> Jim
>

-- 
Casey