The manifold is not the plastic piece that's been discussed on the list
recently. And it's not available in metal as far as I know. It is plastic on
my syncro (87 Westy). But it is a failure-prone part of the cooling system,
as you have learned the hard way.

At 06:52 PM 12/28/96 -0600, Todd Francis wrote:
>Hi all,
>         Well I finally crawled under the Westy to find out which water
>hose broke that ruined my drive home from a Christmas Eve party,and left
>me stranded on I5. It turned out to be a split in the plastic manifold
>that 4 hoses attach to just ahead of number 1 cylinder. I have read many
>times on the list about a plastic part in the coolant system that fails
>and that VW made a metal replacement for. Is this the part that everyone
>has had trouble with. If it is then something someone said sometime back
>is wrong. I remember it being said that VW changed this part to metal on
>the Syncros. Mine is a early Syncro and the part is still plastic. I
>wish it would have been metal. If this is not the part that has been
>discussed on the list, exactly wich part is it?
>
>