I would also add that the whole rig is 30+ years old.
Out of sympathy I broke one of my rules ...NO air-cooled VW's !
..........for the owners of one I worked on one recently.
And air-cooled Vanagon is like aBay Bus with a vanagon body and chassis ..
kinda a tin can, not many features , as mentioned, like power steering ..

This one Ihad been barely ever been taken care of at all,
and had had lots of hack work done to itby an air-cooled VW mechanic.
The owner of the van was driving with only 1 of the 6 rear running/tail
lights working ....no idea of course.
Shihter didn't even have the screws at the base tight ...and he had just
put that in. Whole thing was a real mess.

It made even a pretty bad waterboxer vanagon seem like a fairly well
loved and taken care of vehicle.

if the being considered has a fresh engine, miles are not too high ...
and has been cared for .....'maybe' ..
and even then ....
'not recommended.'
not at all really.  Only if it's totally perfect in every way , and even
then ...

Scott
www.turbovans.com

On 10/26/2012 3:30 PM, Stuart MacMillan wrote:
> They are dogs.  That engine was never intended for the Vanagon, but they couldn't get the waterboxer figured out in time for the new model introduction.  It's a disaster in a Westy.  No heat, no A/C, no power steering, no power period.  People do convert them to Zetec or WBX, but it's a lot of work and a lot of parts scrounging.
>
> Stuart
> '85 Westy
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of Harry Hoffman
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 12:25 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Thoughts on buying a 82 air-cooled westy?
>
> Hi All,
> Was wondering if there are any major gotchas with the 82 west that are worth knowing about?
>   I'm thinking of upgrading to a westy b/c the family has grown.
>
> Cheers,
>   Harry
>