ChiliPepper Clinic

I got caught once in a lake effect storm in Chilipepper and quickly found out that the 2WD Westy had no place in snow or slippery conditions. I have been cruising Ebay and The Samba for 2-3 years now keeping an eye out for a Syncro. I really liked the idea of plowing around in Upstate New York snow storms in a vanagon. That probably came from a New Years trip we had to cancel 4 years back due to a blizzard in NYC. 20 inches of snow...Bah! Most of the syncro vans I have found [- which are not common without the Westy package.] have been either:
1) Rusty
2) "Well used"
3) some nasty color like Gold or Burgundy
4) 1800 miles away in Portland or Seattle
or a combination of the above.

I wanted a late model - Silver - good shape. So - Anyways - i almost bid on a 1985 Scirocco on Ebay 2 weeks back [ never NEVER look at cars on Ebay during your lunch hour!] and stopped myself figuring it would be my luck the Syncro I have been looking for would pop up after I blew money on a Scirocco...
So I waited. Annnnnd..3 weeks later - I found a 1991 Silver syncro for sale 5 hours from my house. Woo! Woo!

Eric and I headed down to Scranton Friday night and stayed at the Scranton Lackawanna Radisson - A former train station converted into a hotel.
Over all, a very nice place - a little loud on friday nights however.







We met the van's owner Ken at the Allentown AAA, picked up the car and headed out for a long drive home. No incidents with the drive home and the van now sits in the parking lot waiting to be put away for the winter. [ it is a 2007 project - i already have 2 bathrooms to remodel for this season....]

Some interesting videos of Syncros and their capabilities can be found on YouTube searching the word "Syncro"

Chilipepper is back in my brother's garage for the winter. It looked like the last non-salt weekend on the season. We had a light snow scare last week - so I wanted to get the van put away before the Salters came out.

Jim is pictured here modeling the latest snow removal technology...





The winter storage checklist:

- Full tank of gas with Stabilizer added.

- Both batteries on their trickle chargers. [ I think my optima is actually dead. We will see next spring.

- New mouse traps set up around my brothers garage. [ Mice can ruin a westy interior]





I was hoping the van would be in goo dshape when I put it away this season so I could contemplate going to EveryBus 2007. EB is a huge bus gathering every April in North Carolina. April is too cold here to work on the van, so if it needs work when I put it away, the van does not come out until May. The rear brakes were crying for some love all this week, so it looks like no EveryBus. But on the bright side..Chilipepper may have a new stable mate soon.....

Well, the van is fixed. After messing with new monster cable for engine grounding and wiggling every wire around the left side of the engine - the DigiTool was getting 4.95 from the Temp 2 sensor and running very poorly. Of course the day I decided to take the car to CDI in Victor - I could not get the van to turn over whatsoever. So - out came the handy AAA card and off went the van on a flatbed tow truck. CDI reported back that the starter went bad and replaced it. They were ready to hand back the car to me until i reminded them that the starter was not the original reason for the service. So I sent them back to try and diagose the electrical problem. They did not seem so excited about trying to troubleshoot that. They left a mesage for me the following day that the van was all set. I did not get to talk to the mechanic but they basically replaced the temp 2 sensor again! The car IS running fine now. I am not entirely convinced the problem is fixed however. I did swap in a new coil for good measure. The whole visit ended up costing me $500. yipes. The van is now asking for new rear brakes, but it will be going into storage this week for the winter. We had snow here Friday! yipes! It was a crummy camping season - but overall Chilipepper did fairly well. 2 trips to viginia and 1 to Pittsburg without a hiccup. Hopefully i will have the same luck next summer as i am contemplating a trip to.. Burning Man! woo! woo!