Great stuff!  Essential philosophy for the old car hobby.

If you haven't read "Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of
Work" by Matthew B. Crawford you should.  It's a timely philosophical
discussion about working with your hands instead of sitting on your butt in
front of a computer.  He left an academic career to go into the business of
restoring classic motorcycles.

And, of course, reading or re-reading Persig's "Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance" is always worth your time.

Stuart
'85 Westy

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Jarrett Anthony Kupcinski
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 9:01 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Friday Philosophy: On the nature of Repair

I came across this blog post which I thought might be of interest to some in
our Vanagon community:

http://goo.gl/v6KUA

It doesn't deal with Vanagons or VWs per se, but it does deal with creative
(and beautiful) attempts to keep useful (but broken) things useful (and
unbroken). It seems to me this repair-minded philosophy is the core around
which communities like the Vanagon list are built.

Some folks do this by doing what they can to "Keep It Stock." Nothing wrong
with that, but it gets difficult when stock becomes no longer available.
What interests me more nowadays are the repairs that folks do that go beyond
Bentley. How do you keep the functionality of a thing true when it can no
longer be what it was? We have to go beyond what VW's engineers designed
without sacrificing their intent. I'm not talking about mods or additions
here, although I admit the line is blurry and those are awesome, too. It's
the things we do, large and small, to keep our vans on the road when parts
can't be bought or found. That's a real challenge.

By the way, for those of you who have posted your repairs (as well as mods,
and hacks), I've appreciated reading your stories and seeing pictures of
your rigs. They inspire me to do similar daring things to my own van. Thank
you.

Jarrett K
Olly, 89 Westy powered by Bostig=