Thanks for your note on the evaporative canister.

On 8/25/2019 12:54 PM, WILLIAM WITZ wrote:
> I used to work in Public Transit and we would inspect all of our Buses once a week. I inspect our 84 every couple of weeks. ... if you drive a 35 year old vehicle uncertainty has to part of the expectation.

I don't expect certainty.  I just want to be as confident as the owner
of a new Westy in 1984 would be.  To do that, I replace all of the parts
that wear out.  That's why it was so upsetting to learn there are
critical plastic fuel expansion tanks nobody every mentioned!

There remain a few parts that simply can't be replaced.  The ECU.  The
air flow meter.  Those wear out.  So far, nobody has a modern ECU and
MAF with a drop-in kit for the '84.  (GoWesty's $3,000 kit is only for
1986 and newer.)

Other than that, I can pretty much renew everything and drive with
confidence.  But not if I'VE NEVER HEARD OF THE PART!

I've had my Westy for ten years and asked many shops to tell me how to
make it more reliable.  I was told to replace the fuel lines long ago,
and I've done that twice now.  Nobody mentioned the coolant expansion
tank until a few years ago, and I upgraded that right away.  But now I
hear about fuel expansion tanks that are critical to reliability?  I'm
ticked that nobody told me about them before.

Yes, I know, go Subaru, right?  I can't afford it.  Indeed, I'd go the
other way.  I love my Vanagon, but I sorta wish I had gotten a 1970s Bus
instead.  As a teenager, I drove my 1967 Beetle all over the country
alone, and I never had a mechanical problem I couldn't fix myself.  The
Vanagon, not so much.

But I'll hang in there with the Vanagon and just keep trying to make it
more reliable.