The separate belts for AC or PS had nothing to do with intelligent engineering or limiting the effect of one item failing.

It was due to the fact that AC and PS were usually upgrades to the base model.  As such, they had to have a way of adding them without too much trouble.

Jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of SDF ( aka ;jim lahey' - Scott )
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2015 7:43 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Funky temp gauge - update

"a good example....traditionally ..in the good ole days  on cars or vans that had AC ..
or PS too ..
if the PS blew out, you could just remove the belt and keep driving without power assist but still have alternator and water pump going.
Like vanagons are .
Same if the AC blew out ..like on our vanagons.

in a modern VW ..like a golf TDI ..often the AC and alternator are on the same belt..
so if say the AC compressor were to seize up ...you don't have the option of running with no AC ..pretty dumb !

or at least without the AC pulley bearing functioning ..and granted they seldom fail ..
still....