I have the location very useful for times when I don't have a free hand to unlock the doors. Like when I am driving down the road, talking on the cell and eating lunch.

I know Tom's Place very well. I spent many summers fishing Bishop creek in the morning climbing at Owen's River Gorge during the day and soaking in the hot springs outside of Big Pine in the evenings... You live in a beautiful slice of heaven down there.

@Timeless - I picked it up private party. Most dealers wanted $7500 to $9000 for vans in the same condition. I was very happy with my find. @T Low - the trip report is coming soon, I have been moving nonstop from the time I got back. Once I get back from a backpack trip to the Wallowas I will get ca...

History The last 4 years I have been driving an '86 VW Westfalia Weekender. I truly love everything about this vehicle except for it's gutlessness on hills and inability to tow. Two years ago I bought a whitewater raft and found that the weight of the raft on the trailer or in the van was just too ...

Hey Jim,

I will post up the conversion details and my road trip details when I get back in town in mid July. It is super fun to drive and made for great sleeping from 1am to 7am at a rest stop in Northern California.

Brought the Asphalia (ok I need to work on the name) home from GTRV :-)

Nice tip coyote x, I will put some thought to that too. Another thought is if I had 2 deep cycling batteries then I could go with the first option where the primary battery is used for everything and the secondary is used as a backup and is only used if needed to jump the primary.

Thanks for the advice, the fridge is 12v. the 400w inverter is for charging the laptop, camera, gps, etc. Just little stuff and not very often.

Hey, I am looking at adding a second battery to my rig for running accessories when the ignition is off. I plan on going with a battery isolator but want opinions on how to set it up. First school of thought is link the batteries and have the accessories run off the main starter battery. The second ...

I was searching the Seattle and Portland Craigslist ads in March for my van. I was looking at 2003-2005 passenger AWD. The private party price ranged from $4700 to $6000, dealer ranged from $6000 to $11,000. Most dealer vans were right around $7000. Mileage was all about the same on all vans, 120k +...

All grammar aside, here is my $0.02. I know this may sound like really going back to the basics, but I have been fouled up by this many times... Since you said you replaced the wires I would check the following: - Make sure the order is correct in the correct rotational direction. With the Number 1 ...

I looked into the 2.4L Waterboxer upgrade and the 1.8 TD swap. Both are sweet options but expensive. The 2.4L Waterboxer crated is $5000. The TD install with upgraded transmission ran $14k. There is a guy in Sacramento putting in a Jetta engine for $12k. The engine size was similar but the HP well e...

I'm partial to the term, "Vanaru" I have multiple friends who have done the conversion and love it. After lots of lamenting on to do or not to do a Subaru conversion I finally sold my '86 Westy two months ago. Bought the Astro and am now spending lots of $$$ to make the layout as great as ...

Right now I am thinking of bolting it to the molding to the rear of the slider.That only works if I can find something solid to bolt to. Nothing says extravagant like pulling into camp, putting up the awning and opening your beer off the body mounted opener. I like the bumper idea too. I may mount t...

In two weeks I pick up my van from GTRV with the new v-top and just 2 days later I embark on a 3200 roadtrip. So I have to be very strategic about the work I do to prep from my trip. My burning question is where do you mount the bottle opener? I had a sweet spot in my VW, but am not sure where to mo...