>Hey now,
>        This thread got me to thinkin' bout the bad exchangers I pulled
>when I put on the Jtubes. Anybody ever taken these babys apart? I read in
>Bently (I think) how to take 'em apart. Is this easy or?  How about buying
>jtubes, and using the rest of the old heater box parts? In my case, the
>boxes were still functional but the pipes were toast-smelled real good when
>I turned on the heaters. Actually had a hole clean through one of 'em down
>where they clamp to the exaust. So what's the verdict?

I posted earlier about Ahnendorp GmbH in Germany, they sell
"Heizbirne superleicht", for us; lightweight heatexchangers,
they look identical to the original, (which is good for the
Germans because otherwise they would have problems with their
TUV inspection, now nobody knows)

These things are in fact J-tubes with identical-to-original
outside tinware, fresh-air-tubing if you like. The performance of
these babies is less than the originals but you save a lot of weight,
the price is the same (!). Ahnendorp says it's a good compromise for
the performance minded.

The Weightdifference comes from the tubing used, and/but the biggest
difference is the aluminum cast around the tube that the originals
have inside their tinware, you can see this cast when you look into
the openings. If you pull one apart you'll see the whole cast, with
fins lenghtwise.

We could try and contact Jopex in Danmark to ask if we could purchase
the tinware seperately and mount it around J-tubes, advantages are:

-Original looking engine
-Still a heater
-Less weight
-Cheaper

For the even-every-bolt-has-to-be-original-people* (i'm one of those):
The heatexchanger is a regular replacement part, if you drive your VW
you'll have to replace 'em from time to time, so this is not a part
i would worry about in this perspective.

*:a shorter name for this category: OBG : Original Bolt Guy :)

Cheers!

Brian.