>         With all this talk about head gasket failures it got me
> thinking about cost comparisons between fixing the heads and
> replacing the engine with a vw in-line 4 of some kind.

Interestingly enough, I just started exploring this.  :-)  Around
here in eastern PA, a head and gasket job is around $1800.  I just
visited to today that showed me the block side of a ripped-apart '87
Syncro waterboxer and showed me that the block pits badly as well.
So they recommend replacing with a VW waterboxer for a typical price
of $3500 including R&R and some coolant hoses.

R&R time estimate was about a week.  The VW rebuilt engine comes with
a 1 year unlimited mile warranty.

Now, this is all from the shop guy's mouth (Hydrex in Vera Cruz, PA).
I've never dealt with them, but judging by the number of H2O
Vanagons around and the fact that he knew quite a bit about them
leads me to believe that they know what they're doing.

-Karl
Karl and Kristina Bloss, Trexlertown, PA
'87 GL Weekender  "Beverley"
VW shop list: http://www.enter.net/~bloss/vw/vwshops