Well, guys, I did it!  My [A] Vanagon is back on the road!  What a releif
to be able to go kayaking and mountain biking again.

My baby look beautiful with her fire-engine red motor, rebuilt heads,
and brand new pistons/cylinders.  The goons that sold me the rebuilt
heads had neglected to tell me that they had machined the cylinder bores
a bit.  This caused two problems: first, since the heads were slightly
closer to the camshaft than intended, I could not set the valves as 
indicated in the manual.  Second, the tips on they cylinders weren't long
enough to make contact with the seal in the head bore.  I did't figure 
that one out until I had put everything back together (pffft, pffft,
pffft.....).  I solved the first problem by placing shims under the rocker
arm supports.  The second problem was solved by shaving a bit off of the
flat part of the heads with a fly cutter.  I guess I have slightly higher
than stock compression ratio now.

I'm getting really quick at taking the engine in and out.  I put cinder
block on each side of the engine bay, and place a 2"x4" accross the top to
which I attach a small hand winch.  Having the engine supported by a cable
from above, rather than with jacks from below makes it really easy to 
lign up the motor and transmission so that they slide together.

It runs pretty good now, but it idles like shit until it gets warmed up.
I hope this is due to a variety of cracked vacuum hoses.

I think I am going to go sacrifice some Rabbit entrails now  :-)    :-)
and then go for a nice long ride!
   ..................vrooooooommmmmmmm.........

--Albrecht  (357 miles and counting)