Hey all,
You will not believe what happened today!

I was working on the '81, I first raised the front and put it on
jackstands, then let the front down and raised the rear.  I was giving the
van a good inspection from the underside.  That creeper that my grandfather
donated makes it much more enjoyable!

Anyway, I had already let down the left rear.  I was letting the right rear
down when all of a sudden, POP! and the van went down about an inch or two
really quickly.

"That can't be good" I thought.

I peeked underneath and found no signs of anything broken, so then
proceeded to crank the jack.  However, I noticed that my cranking was not
being translated into downward motion on the jack.  Well, now I knew what
broke.  I could also not crank the jack up.  Closer inspection revealed
that the vertical screw which does the raising and lowering had broken up
at the top, where it attaches to the gear that attaches to the other gear
which you turn with the handle.

So now I was stuck.  I had no way of cranking the jack down and I could not
remove the jack as the van was not lowered all the way.

I thought quickly and went to my place of employment (using my brother's
car) and borrowed a hydraulic floor jack from them.  That did the trick, I
was able to raise the van enough to get the damaged stock jack out.

The stock jack is now scrap metal.  It's not repairable.

So I need a Vanagon jack.  Be aware that the jack for a Bus will NOT work
with a Vanagon.  The Bus has square jack ports while the Vanagon has round
ones.  The Vanagon jack part number starts with 251.

I'd like to get this ASAP, as I am now going to be paranoid about flat
tires.  I have a good spare, I have a great lug wrench, but I don't have a
jack!!

Any help here would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Sean