Date:         Mon, 18 Sep 1995 10:09:00 -0700 (PDT)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Maher, Steve (SD-MS)" <SMAHER@PO2.GI.COM>
Subject:      RE: Need VW Van Advice!!!


On Sept.15, 1995, Malachi28@aol.com wrote:

>     I want to purchase a VW bus camper, so I answered an ad in the 
newspaper
>for a 70' westy camper.
>         (snip)
>     My main concern is the "FREE" play in the steering wheel and it is
>difficult to find the 1st gear.  The owner is use to driving the van with
>this enormous amout of free play, but I don't want to pay for something 
that
>might be very costly.  What could be causing the free play and how much 
would
>it be to fix the problem?  The driver is also use to the 1st gear 
difficulty.
> After I get it to first gear, it is pretty easy to get to 2nd, 3rd, and 
4th
>gear.  Is this just normal wear and tear? PLS COMMENT!
>
>ALL SUGGESTIONS AND COMMENTS WOULD BE APPRECIATED!!!  The owner wants
>$1700.00 for the van, what do you think?


In any car, free play can come from several places... and the baywindow
busses have a few more on top of that.

The usual places, are the steering box (There is an adjustment for this,
but if the box is old and worn, it may not help much), the Pittman arm
that comes out of the steering box (sometimes it gets loose on the shaft
that comes out of the box), the tie rod ends (little ball joints) that
connect the steering to the wheels, and the big ball joints themselves
that mount the wheels to the bus. Wear in any or all of these, can cause
excessive play in the steering wheel... and the effects add up if more
than one component is worn. They can even have have only slight wear in each
part of the chain, perfectly safe and reliable, but add up to  a lot of slop
from steering wheel to the rubber on the road.

The extra part that the busses throw in, that other cars don't have, is the
drag link that goes from the pittman arm on the steering box, to the little
bellcranc on top of the front axle; and the bellcrank itself with its mount.
These can and do wear too.

Wear in only one or two of these pieces, my be fairly inexpensive to fix.
But the more worn parts you have...

The balky first gear could be caused by wear in the shift linkage, which
can be kind of a pain to fix/align/bless (but not terrible)... or a 
transmission
problem, which can be a real pain (speaking as someone who has never 
repaired
a transmission and isn't about to start-- I just swap them out).

In my '71, I had trouble getting into 1st and reverse, and 2nd was a real
challenge. Took it to a good shop here in San Diego, who found wear in the
little bushing that holds the front of the shifter rod (From the shift 
handle to
the front of the transmission), and in the shifter plate that holds the 
shifter
handle. He replaced those two items (new shift plates are pretty poor 
quality,
but originals are real rare), spent a LOT of time adjusting and TLCing the
shifter, and now it shifts quite normally. He also found some wear in the 
ball
of the shifter handle, but judged it wasn't enough to spend big bucks for a
new one.

?1700 seems a little steep to me. But, then,I like to buy crappy vehicles
for a song and fix them up, so at the end I know exactly what I have.
Maybe you can make him a lower offer, and see how willing he is to dicker?

Good luck,
 -Steve Maher   smaher@gi.com   '71 VW Transporter