Hey, our Great Dane is very low maintenance.  She requires much less than our vans do and as an added bonus her byproducts are biodegradable.:>)

Mark in AK

----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Fisher <refisher@MCHSI.COM>
Date: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 12:34 pm
Subject: Re: Death Valley
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM

> --snip--
> > I don't want to start a "here's my tool list" thread
> > because that's been done a gazillion times, but is there such a list
> > published online?
> --snip--
>
> Back when Joy had started her trek and was beginning to have
> troubles with
> Matilda I was thinking that for 'folks like her' (the mechanical
> novice) it
> would be useful to have a basic Vanagon tool list. I thought if
> you used the
> maintenance schedule as a starting point, you could list the tools
> necessaryfor each job, and by the end you would then have a list
> of those tools
> necessary to do most of what you would ever need to do on the van.
> I suspect
> that it would wind up being like any fairly comprehensive basic
> tool kit you
> could buy but it would be interesting to see it and have it broken
> down by
> job. You could then take the list, if you were so inclined, and
> assemble a
> 'Vanagon tool box', or fill in the blanks on the tools you have.
>
> Of course for the Vanagon there are other things that belong in the
> 'maintenance list' that aren't going to be in the manual (like
> replacing the
> fuel lines), so they would have to be added in, and depending on
> who was
> assembling the list even something like that might require
> additional tools
> such as the spring-clamp tool. Another thing that came to mind was
> the tool
> for the CV bolts.
>
> I didn't have time to pursue it but it comes to mind now and then-
> if we
> made a list that was a combination of lists, 'what you should do
> to your van
> immediately after purchase', 'the modified routine maintenance
> list' and the
> list of the tools necessary to do each job (and thereby a
> comprehensive tool
> list) it would probably be a great help, particularly to the new
> owners that
> show up and those that have had their vans long enough to realize that
> they've purchased the automotive equivalent of a Great Dane.
>
> Cya,
> Robert
>