Having experience from when my parents had RV's and now being on my third it
amazes how most every trip involves a repair of some sort. Two I have owned
since new. First come the appliance repairs starting with the refrigerator
or water heater. Winter travel seems to involve a furnace malfunction. Then
come the house battery failures with boil overs etc. At least with the
Roadtrek you should be able to find folks willing to fix it, (try).

With any of these vehicles the further you tend to go from home the more you
will benefit from some level of self-sufficiency. The repairs you listed
above would have been ~$100 do it yourself.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Larry Steffen
Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2014 6:53 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Considering an engine swap for the past decade, but WBX just
keeps going

Moving on,,,,,, still have the '89 Westy but for local drives only now.
Replaced by RoadTrek van for worry -free camper travel.  Last week, $600. to
replace Westy clutch master cylinder and leaking fuel line over starter that
dumped full tank of gas over night on grass.  Am lucky to have survived
morning start up.  Replace your old rubber fuel line now!

Sent from my iPhone

> On Nov 26, 2014, at 6:20 PM, Stuart MacMillan <stuartmacm@GMAIL.COM>
wrote:
>
> I agree that as it came out of the factory it was a well-made engine that
could run a long time, and I ran my original '84's 1.9 250,000 with one head
reseal done under partial warranty at 40k.  My current poorly maintained
original '85 engine with 155k is still doing okay, and hopefully I can get
another 10k or so before I do a Subaru conversion.
>
> The reality is that today you can't duplicate that OEM quality, it's an
obsolete design, Go Westy's efforts notwithstanding. You have to reuse a 25+
year old alloy case, crank & rods, and bore out the old cylinders to get
higher displacement.
>
> It's reached the point of diminishing returns because of the high cost of
what I view as an unreliable rebuild, hence the desire for some other
engine.  Even VW gave up on this engine for the extended run of the Vanagon
in South Africa.  Not that the five cylinder was a great improvement.
>
> The WBX is the final generation in the evolution of a 65 year old design.
>
> Prepare to move on, sooner or later.
>
> Stuart