Salvage yard

The van has quite a few dings and dents from the previous owner and probably the worst one is right on a wheel well and would take a lot of work to fix and then you gotta deal with the paint. You can get flares out of South Africa and they would cover this little mishap perfectly but they are well over a hundred dollars. So I walked around trying to come up with an idea that would work. The problem is that the arches on the van are longer (front to back) than the Passat, Jetta and Golf so that's not gonna work. I did find a really nice set of GTI mud flaps and started to pull those off when I realized that the inner lip of the wheel well is different on the van and that these wouldn't fit. The Vanagon is the bastard child. Again...you can find flaps out of South Africa but I think the last time I checked they were 50 for one set. Flaps are so Rally though. This yard didn't have one Vanagon! It had a couple of GTI's and about a dozen mid-90's Jetta's and Golf's.

What there were a lot of was ABA 2 liter motors in those Jetta's and Golf's. This is the 115hp motor. It wasn't anything special but it would be more reliable than the 2.1 in the van. I stood there thinking about it for a while because they are a dime a dozen. It could work in the van if you use diesel parts to connect it to the trans. After a bit of research when I got home I found that the 2 liter head sits 17mm higher than the motor that's in the van. and that would interfere with the bed. BUT......if I use a 1.8 head it would shoehorn in the engine bay since the head is shorter. I love looking around the yards at all the older cars that I've owned.

You're also gauranteed to see lots of interesting people at the junkyard too which is another reason to go. Yesterday a guy approached me. This guy was limping towards me and I noticed him out of the corner of my eye. There's a lot of people that limp at the junkyard only they normally can't even pick up said leg so they let it drag on the ground behind them as they approach unsuspecting people. As soon as he got close enough he let fly with the tried and true junkyard banter: "There sure is a lot of junk here". I put this one right up there with being in a sauna and having some jackass comment about how it feel's like a sauna in here. Anyway...this guy slurred like he had already had several pulls off the Ripple or 20/20 and then it came; "Hey brah....can I borrow some tools?" This bothers me. People that come to a junkyard are there hoping to find something for a vehicle. Generally, these parts are not just randomly laying around. There is some disassembly required. Now the only reason this is a real problem for me is that I once had a guy run off with some of my tools and that's just shitty. So in my head I'm thinking, "Fool me twice....shame on me?" So.....I told him no. Immeadiately this was a problem and I was the mean guy which is perfectly fine.