At 13:17 12/26/99 , Jay & Kim Schmidt wrote:
>Has anyone made these at home? It looks like it could be done with metal,
>vice, drill press, etc.   VW may have these, but I'm sure at a price that a

Lots of people have done them at home.  But most of the homemade ones I've
seen have changed the stiffness at the ends abruptly rather than gradually,
so they break off where the thick part turns into the thin part (especially
that right-angled end on the 1.9l -- dunno if the 2.1 has one like
it).  You'll see that the VW ones have a very smooth transition from tube
to flat....

Another case of the general rule that the quicker the transition between
stiff (high impedance) and flexible (low impedance), the more stress is
concentrated at the transition point and the more likely the part is to
break there.

david
David Beierl - Providence, RI
  http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
'85 GL "Poor Relation"