Being as I am home sick today, I decided to go through the stack of 
 receipts accumulated during the rebuild of my '74's 1800 twin carb.

 As those of you who have been through this before already know, the expense
 of the long block is just the beginning.....

 In addition to the long block, I changed the clutch disk, throw-out
 bearing, fuel pump, rebuilt the carbs, cap, rotor, spark plug wires,
 changed to transistorized ignition, put in a new engine compartment
 seal and replaced EVERY piece of hose.

 The grand total: $1158.75  This is just parts, I didn't charge myself for
 the labor.

 Just for fun, I thought I'd see how much it would have cost if I had done
 the same job on a '71 bus <which I sometimes wish I had instead of the
 '74>. With the help of The Bus Stop catalog <I got a lot of my rebuild
 stuff from them> and the AVP price sheet <long block> I came up with
 $830.36. 

 The bulk of the difference <$328.39> is in the long block <$890.00 vs.
 $655.00> and the clutch plate <$78.75 vs. $28.49>, but the 1800 does
 have 36% more power than the 1600 and that's worth something, right? With
 the exception of ignition parts, which cost the same, a rule of thumb 
 might be that type IV parts cost 50-100% percent more than their type I
 counterparts.

 All in all, now that the bus is running well again, even the $1100 dollar 
 figure seems reasonable when compared with the alternatives of replacing
 the bus rather than fixing it.

 Hope this blather is of interest to somebody.

 Best regards,

 Dave

 P.S.  Regarding names - the '74 is officially named "Young Fred". This is
       only because our '64 was called "Old Fred". Our '72 was referred
       to as "Crayola" - you can see why on David Schwarze's web page
       under the misc. VW photos. We never refer to the '74 by name -
       perhaps it should be re-christened now that it has a new engine!