Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 05:46:03 -0700
Reply-To: Stephen Grisanti <bike2vcu@YAHOO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Stephen Grisanti <bike2vcu@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: Vanagonginity lost...
In-Reply-To: <BLU0-SMTP282F1ACE843E8740356B37D1CB0@phx.gbl>
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Congratulations and Happy Westy!
Carrying four bikes may take some doing. Most hatch-mounted racks will only do three. I use the Saris Bones and it's fine for that but it's tough to lift the hatch with even one bike on it. Others have modified Yakima roof racks to mount on the edges of the hatch, but that's a lot of weight and may restrict hatch access for someone not able to lift that weight. If I were starting from scratch and wanted to carry four with hatch access, I'd get a receiver hitch (or convert an existing hitch to strong receiver) and get one of the four-bike swingaway racks. Carry four where you can get to them easily and be able to swing them out of the way for unfettered access to the hatch whenever you need it. Good luck!
Stephen
--- On Mon, 6/28/10, Peter Kraiker <bybike@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
From: Peter Kraiker <bybike@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Vanagonginity lost...
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Date: Monday, June 28, 2010, 8:27 PM
I just thought I'd let everyone know that after about 8 weeks of educating myself I took the leap and bought my first westy... flew to Montreal on Friday, spend the morning with the PO (definitely not the dreaded variety!) and then drove her home to Toronto... my first taste of being passed by almost everything else on the highway! lol, loved it.
I have 2 new questions, one more pressing than the other:
Hot Q #1. how the h3!! do i persuade it to stop heating my feet or face? I have all the levers all the way to the left and I'm still getting a steady stream of warm air from the heating system. I'd like to just have flow-thru cool air this time of year! She came with the original manual and I can see what the various levers are supposed to do, i would have expected the 2nd from the bottom to let cool air thru when moved to the right, and it does open up side vents (near doors, 1/2 way down the dash)... still heat coming out of either the window or floor vents though :(
Cool Q#2. I will want to add a bike rack... she has a very strong bumper with a towing ball... I was thinking of getting someone to weld a receptacle for a hitch bike rack but don't know the load it could handle (I want to be able carry 4 bikes). The other option I'm considering is a rear hatch rack, the local Rack Attack doesn't have anything to fit a vanagon though. Suggestions?
Bonus question #3: the front bumper doesn't have any holes for licence plates (and in Ontario we need front plates). I hope to get a playful euro-style plate for the center, so I am looking for a way to mount a current plate on the passenger side of the bumper. There used to be a bracket which I gather is NLA, suggestions? Currently it's just strapped onto the grill :(
Peter Kraiker
http://studiofstop.com
('82 Turbo D Westy)
