
Sorry for the lack of posts fans, May was a busy month for me, and I took my first trip to Central America for a friends’ wedding. Surfed every day for almost 2 weeks, never once saw a Westfalia, but wow all those awesome Toyota and Nissan diesels that you can’t get here. On that note, I saw this find pop up fresh just moments ago, and if it’s the real deal, it’s worth checking out for sure. This van is a 1984 VW Vanagon Westfalia Camper in Aussan Brown with a 1.9L TDI engine for a 2004 Jetta. The problem is, the seller provided pretty much 0 details in both The Samba post, and the craigslist post.
The 2004 Jetta came with an electronically managed engine, and porting over this whole system to a Vanagon is very difficult to say the least. There’s a chance the engine is now using a mechanical injection pump, which is what many of the turbo diesel Vanagon swaps utilize. I’m not savvy enough to know by looking a the picture provided (below). There’s also no note as to whether the transmission was regeared, or rebuilt for the swap.
At any rate, the photos show tell the story of a clean, well cared for ’84 Westy Camper with likely original Aussan Brown paint, original curtains, screens, upholstery, original everything. There’s no mention of how well, or if at all, the kitchen appliances or propane function. The main seal on the pop top is missing, and there’s no pictures of the upstairs, It looks like there was a seam rust repair near the rocker panel on the drivers side, so be sure to get the full scoop here, including a good look underneath. It also appears to have the old A/C ducting still installed, but no A/C in the engine bay, so you can probably just have all the old ducting removed and get more storage out of the deal. No VIN provided by the seller, so all in all, this one is a mystery.
The main selling points here, are a good looking rust free Westy with a 1.9L TDI engine. At only $14k, this is going get a lot of eyeballs this weekend. What do you think it’s worth? Have you seen this Westy? Are you the current owner? Tell us more in the comments below, or head on over to the individual discussions about this Westy on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest or Twitter.
Craigslist Ad – The Samba Ad
I bought this van. The paint was new but over some poorly repaired rust, so two years later it is bubbling through. The engine was setup as an mTDI. It was really slow and died when I got it back to Canada. I ended up having to put the electronics back in to get it going properly. I’m now about to replace the turbo. I love my van, but I’m not so sure that it was a good buy.