Hi Everyone.  My a/c was leaking at the pulley end of the compressor, 
and had to be rebuilt.  My dealer farmed it out the compressor  to an a/c specialist 
in the Vancouver, BC area.  My van is a '90, and has a Sanden 
compressor.

It took 2.5 weeks to get this done.  The a/c place (who do Sanden 
compressors for all makes) couldn't get hold of the right seal kit to 
get this fixed.  They couldn't source any seals on Canada, and dealt 
with Sanden in California who took two tries to get the right seals.

It turns out that the compressor for the Westfalia is a unique model, 
and nobody had dealt with this particular model before. Of course, it 
had to my compressor that failed!

Meanwhile my dealer was doing some digging, and seal kits for this 
compressor are available through VW itself.  VW knows this compressor 
is unique and has stocked the required parts in their major parts 
depots.  

So, if anybody runs into a similar thing, get the a/c shop to source 
the seal kit from VW itself.  I thought of buying an extra seal kit, 
but it's over $100 CDN... so forget it.

On the bright side, since my a/c system uses R12 refrigerant, this is 
the best thing that happened to my compressor.  First of all, my van 
is still on extended warranty... cost me a whole $50 CDN for rebuild, 
and evacuate/recharge of system.  Also, maybe I can get another 5 
years out of the compressor without having to worry about finding 
R12.  More than likely the compressor will have to be changed to 
R134A compliant specs in a few years anyway.  This total rebuild cost 
the warranty folks $481 CDN.

A happy ending.

Harry. 
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Harry Yates      Internet: hyates@bcit.bc.ca  Burnaby, BC
'90 Syncro Westfalia
'87 Golf Diesel