Hi.. a voice from the mysterious east

Just caught up on my clogged newsreader, thought I'd get in my 2 cents worth 
now.

1) CV Lore          The star wrench for getting those pesky CVs out goes by 
the trade name of Hazett, a 3/8" socket drive. If you can afford one BUY IT 
NOW, this is not just the Cadillac of tools, it's a Rolls-Royce. I paid 
$22Cdn for mine, ouch. The star teeth get shallower as the tool gets in 
deeper, so the hardened edges will cut/wedge into beatup bolts way way 
better than a regular Allen key. Cleaning the head of the bolts to let this 
tool sink in is a must, as someone mentioned. The Hazett will remove Allen 
headed bolts that are beat to death, just drive it firmly in. (I hate 
Vise_grips or any similiar metal-eating knuckle-skinning imitations) If you 
have really buggered the bolt heads pound them directly in with a large flat 
faced punch. This moves some metal back into the center enough to let the 
Hazett bite in again. This trick works sometimes for regular Allen keys 
also. One single F**ked CV joint bolt can take 1/4 hour to tease out, 
micro-turn at a time using vise grips, and you ain't going to do this on the 
outboard Vanagon CV anyhow. What's your time worth? Pay the $$, it's nice to 
start a job knowing that you're fully armed and dangerous. I've used 
Craftsman Allen keys on a socket drive (big 3/4" drive handle with 3/8"  
adapter to the socket) and they work well BUT they always wobble and slip if 
you get crooked. The Hazett fits correctly, almost bonds to the bolt head 
and won't wobble when seated well. Don't waste any money on a regular set of 
Allens keys for this job alone, nice to have in the tool box though.
        It seems to be the outboard joint that goes first, I've put this 
down to road shock, each bump/pothole shakes off grease at that end, the 
tranny CV gets a smoother ride. Cars driven around town seem to loose the 
passenger side first, more cruddy road surface near the curb? Anyone else 
noticed a trend? I was told to 'massage' the grease back into the joint from 
the boot when it had cooled down, especially after long highway runs. Now ve 
are getting intimate about our vantasies. Sorry, bad pun. Also told to use a 
horse syringe to pump in grease, just shoot up your boots at the bottom of 
the folds, haven't tried this one yet though. 

2) Engine swaps         After someone posted KEP phone # I got their 
catalog. And the winner is..... a 2.2 litre Subaru Legacy motor, 130HP, 
160HP turbo! It's a water cooled flat four 16 valve motor, 1990-94 year. I 
noticed someone was looking for around 150 HP, here it is. This engine 
requires raising the Vanagon deck lid about 3 inches, a liveable pain. All 
Subaru motors seem suited, ie 1800cc Loyale motor @ ~90hp, 115 turbo, and it 
_appears_ no deck lid changes! The Subaru dealer here "assured" me that 
their motors are good for up to 150,000 miles. A couple of scarce Subarus 
were 6cyl 2.7l@145HP and 3.3l 24v@230HP, wow! An amazing list of 
conversions, staggering. Best V8 was an old Buick 1963!, found in... yup 
Buicks, but also (as I remember)  MGB-GT8, Morgan +8, Rover-3500, Triumph 
TR-8 all old '70s cars, and in older Range-Rovers/ Land-Rovers. Parts hard 
to get, lots of old British sports car clubs around though. The newer 
Range-Rovers have  the same motor upped to 3.9 litre, no mention though. Got 
an annoying rich neighbour? Hmmm.. Pinto engines were NOT recommended due to 
vibration of the inline 4 cyls. Their catalog is a good short source of 
reading material. Happy dreams.

3) Bleeding the Rad    Park on a reasonably steep hill, you need the front 
bumper about 18" higher than the rear, NOT the other way 'round! Take off 
the front upper grill, and remove the bleed screw. Now jam a piece of 
plastic tubing into the screw hole, twist it in etc. and run the other end 
into a 2litre Coke bottle, to the bottom. Balance the entire mess against 
the windshield with the help of the wiper arm, string, spit whatever. Turn 
all heater controls to HOT. With the parking brake FIRMLY on, put the car in 
neutral and start the engine then walk to the back and now remove the 
"radiator" cap. If you remove the cap first, then the front bleed screw your 
vanagon will pee itself before you can start the motor, so be warned! Open 
the rear cross bleed screw, a plastic knob. Revving the engine up will push 
gungy brown/green coolant and many air bubbles into the coke bottle, whose 
level you can observe by squinting through the front windshield. Add fresh 
coolant as the level drops at the radiator cap. You can balance the revs to 
let the coolant in the coke bottle be re-inhaled, minus bubbles. I cycle the 
coolant level in the coke bottle up and down a few times, short high revs to 
push out the air bubbles. Then, keeping the revs up, close the radiator cap 
once the belching into the coke bottle stops. Close BOTH bleed screws. Let 
it run for a while, then turn off, wait 5 minutes, start it up again and 
removing the radiator cap, see if the coolant level drops significantly when 
you rev it up. If so you've still got an air bubble in there, likely in the 
heater core, do it all again and rev it higher! This is a relatively clean 
way to do this job single handed. Don't waste time jacking the van up on 
stands, go public and find a good spot, it takes 15-20 minutes, and you can 
move along quickly if rousted by Gestapo. The antifreeze kills thirsty cats, 
can get you fined for dumping etc. so the coke bottle works well, just cap 
the gungy stuff and bury it in your back yard late at night. 

4) Stainless steel brake lines    The point of these beasts is to give 
firmer pedal feel, the stainless steel braiding does that in part, but it is 
the small bore Teflon tube lining the inside of the rubber hose that is the 
real key. The teflon doesn't balloon out when you hit the brakes like your 
regular all rubber hoses, this is prevented by the teflon tube AND the 
stainless braid. Why stainless? Plain steel braid wires that fine would rust 
flex/crack and disappear damned fast letting the teflon balloon 
(irreversibly) until it popped. Unlike rubber, the teflon won't recover 
after stretching a lot. The teflon inner diameter is about the same as the 
rest of the hard steel lines, for 'compatibility', which I suspect is a 
bogus claim. Would I buy them?, why not? they can't be worse, might even 
prevent that rubber swelling close-off problem also mentioned. I've got to 
replace all 4 lines on an old Porsche, <$10.00 total difference, so I'm 
going stainless. 

and finally 5) 2 Westies for sale in my area, classified adds, local paper, 
population 60,000 etc. (read: ~boonies)
        1988 loaded, air $15,000Cdn     ($1.00 US = $1.40 Cdn)
        1990 loaded, auto, air $20,900Cdn
        or best offer  (no mileage given for either)
I haven't called/seen these two but if someone is slightly serious I could 
do so, calling is obviously no problem. They're both out of my price range, 
sigh. I don't know about cross-border shopping USA/Canada, free-trade is 
only a concept on my side of the line. I would pay customs duty, 8%, 
provincial tax 11%, GST 7%, coming up this way, going west? Remember this is 
Fredericton, New Brunswick, 3hrs east from Bangor Maine (am I getting 
warm?), 9-10hrs. to Boston (did that help?). Email direct if you want the 
phone numbers, more info etc., I forgot to bring in the ad. sorry

and.... sorry for the long posting    tjs

ps: --> Joel, could you buy an answering machine, then I could just dictate 
it for your nimble fingers to transcribe, my binary typeing mode (1 finger 
ON/OFF) leaves something to be desired in speed. Thanks for your tech note 
on 60% antifreeze mixture warning by the way!