Meet Morrison...1985 Westfalia

[Amskeptic]

Update: Had an impromptu visit from Colin yesterday. After chasing down numerous vacuum leaks and a oil-fouled spark plug, we managed to get this bus to actually run and drive with some power behind it.

Now I at least have a piece of mind that this rig will run and drive without having to rebuild an engine right away.

I am wishing now that I would've taken a photo or two with Colin behind the wheel. Guess I'll have to book him for a full day on the next itinerary.

Man, I just did a '72 bus yesterday that now "doesn't" run. I tore up the back of the engine, found a plugged r/s cylinder head and a plugged oil cooler. We shall overcome and have a fleet of good '72s on this forum.

The 1700 engines deserve a resurgence of respect.
Colin

[Ryno]

Update: Had an impromptu visit from Colin yesterday. After chasing down numerous vacuum leaks and a oil-fouled spark plug, we managed to get this bus to actually run and drive with some power behind it.

Now I at least have a piece of mind that this rig will run and drive without having to rebuild an engine right away.

I am wishing now that I would've taken a photo or two with Colin behind the wheel. Guess I'll have to book him for a full day on the next itinerary.

Man, I just did a '72 bus yesterday that now "doesn't" run. I tore up the back of the engine, found a plugged r/s cylinder head and a plugged oil cooler. We shall overcome and have a fleet of good '72s on this forum.

The 1700 engines deserve a resurgence of respect.
Colin

We're all in this deal together!

[Ryno]

My friend who does detailing owed me a favor, so he worked on getting some of the original paint to shine yesterday. It's starting to look pretty good!

[Amskeptic]

My friend who does detailing owed me a favor, so he worked on getting some of the original paint to shine yesterday. It's starting to look pretty good!

72detailed.jpg

Yes! That looks good. Looking forward to its continuing evolution. When it gets dialed in, you can't help but want to improve it even more as it rewards you with a unique fun experience.
Colin
(what the hell adspeak sauce have I been ingesting?)

[Ryno]

So, after taking a crappy ride on an Amtrak to Montana back in Early July, we decided to sell our 72 Kombi and purchase a 1985 Vanagon Westfalia. For next years visit to the Flathead Valley, we are going in style!

We picked it up a week ago and it's awesome. In fact, we have never named any of our buses until now. If you'd like to see some photos of Morrison and follow our family's adventures, upgrades and repairs, we'll be jabbering over on the FacePage. Kinda slow going right now, but we have some upcoming trips planned.

Guess what Colin?....It needs CV joints.

Check it out:
https://www.facebook.com/VanagonMorrison

[Ryno]

Meet Morrison

[luftvagon]

wow! nice find! now time to gut the wasserleaker and put aircooled motor back into it ;)

[Ryno]

wow! nice find! now time to gut the wasserleaker and put aircooled motor back into it ;)

Ha!...I'm a permanent convert now!...I am a big fan of how a Vanagon behaves on the road. And talk about comfort!

[luftvagon]

One of the best things about Vanagon is it's turning radius..

[RussellK]

You better change the title before "Morrison" sees it. That's no beater!

[Ryno]

You better change the title before "Morrison" sees it. That's no beater!

Thanks Russ!...I would change it, but that's beyond my computin abilities.

[Lanval]

My 85 is not perfect, but beats the 82 air-cooled of the same design. It also has many advantages over the early busses, two of which I also owned. Heat is one of them; power is another (to be fair, I have the later 2.1 engine), power steering is nice if you've got it, and hopefully, I'll get my AC working.

As I noted on your Facebook page, wait'll you turn on the rear AND front heater on a cold day. You'll at the air-fooled dudes freezin' their patooties off. Welcome to the dark side; the dark side is dangerous, but powerful; sooooo powerful (power steering, power brakes, power engine, power everything!)

ML

[Ryno]

My 85 is not perfect, but beats the 82 air-cooled of the same design. It also has many advantages over the early busses, two of which I also owned. Heat is one of them; power is another (to be fair, I have the later 2.1 engine), power steering is nice if you've got it, and hopefully, I'll get my AC working.

As I noted on your Facebook page, wait'll you turn on the rear AND front heater on a cold day. You'll at the air-fooled dudes freezin' their patooties off. Welcome to the dark side; the dark side is dangerous, but powerful; sooooo powerful (power steering, power brakes, power engine, power everything!)

ML

Power is right!...I also love the coil spring suspension. I do have to get after this noisy CV joint though. I pulled and greased it last weekend, but the noise is still there. The new units should be arriving today, fresh in from China, I will post a quality statement on them along with photos this weekend.

[luftvagon]

I don't have heat issues with my air cooled ride... it heats summer and winter just fine.. -_-

[Amskeptic]

Power is right!...I also love the coil spring suspension. I do have to get after this noisy CV joint though.

Now Vanagon fans, I will *give you* only what *Vanagons bring* to the table.

I owned a brand new '89 GL and loved it for 110,000 miles, it was a superb road machine with brilliant handling and gorgeous visibility. Fine.

It's off-roading capability sucks. Coil springs are tedious bounding resonance that no graceful discrete torsion bar will ever hound you with, but they are part of the excellent *road* engineering recipe of the Vanagons.

Vanagons are hell on clutch disks if you do try to go off-road and have to back up a rock path.

My wc dual core Vanagon kept the interior reasonably warm down to 20* below 0. That was nice.
The BobD keeps the interior reasonably tolerable down to 20* above 0.

Vanagons have plenty of irritating plasticky trashy compromises of cheep that no early Bay will ever beset you with, ever.

Hey, I got a couple of CVs . . .
Colin