Welcome Joe! A number of us on here are also on the Diesel Vanagon group on
Yahoo, where as you might suspect the dieselness of the Diesel Vanagon is
the main are of interest. For the 90 percent of overlap between gas and
diesel, this group has very deep Vanagon experience and very helpful
members as you could probably tell. I have a 1983 Westy with 5-speed that
has been upgraded to a turbo 1.6 and we love it. Even in its NA days, we
would not have traded it for anything. Camped hundreds of times in it--so
far! Almost 400K miles now.

Jim

On Mon, Oct 3, 2016 at 8:41 AM joe kallo <quietglow@gmail.com> wrote:

> I've been a lurker for last couple months after we finally bought our first
> Vanagon, so I figure it might be time to say hi (particularly with the
> current discussion!). My wife Allison and I are the proud owners of a '82
> 1.6na diesel westy that had been lovingly cared for by two previous owners.
> In the 2 months since we bought it, we've camped about 2 weeks (every
> Friday and Saturday nights) and put 2k+ miles on it. I've owned a whole
> bunch of vehicles over the years, but this has certainly been my favorite
> so far.
>
> We live in Chicago, and our prime reason for getting a van is heading to MI
> and WI to explore, fish, surf, etc. Most of that happens on little state
> roads with 55mph speed limits, and of course it's pretty flat around here.
> So I think less about the 1.6 being underpowered and more about it being so
> awesomely simple and fuel efficient. I am quite sure I'd have a different
> opinion if my stomping grounds were the rockies.
>
> I was super excited to find the Vanagon listserv. I was active on the bmw
> 2002 list waaay back in the mid 90s, and I've always found the listservs
> preferable to message boards etc. I've been enjoying the discussions here,
> and I look forward to chatting with you all in the future.
>
> Best,
> Joe
>