Hi all,

After almost 10 years of Vanagon ownership, my wife and I have added a
Westfalia to the family - an '82 diesel. It is strangely exhilirating
to drive that slowly on the interstate.

Of course, the first thing I did when I got the Westy home was to go back
through the archives and read the 238,655 messages about refrigerators
and poptop canvas I ignored over the years. A few questions still
remain. Here's one...

A week or so ago, there was a post regarding how to refurbish the sliding
windows. My little fuzzy scrapers are shot too, and the window rattles
in a highly disturbing fashion when closing the sliding door. My
personal thought, completely unsubstantiated, is that if I went to an
auto glass place, they might be able to replace the fuzzy strip with
something that would do the job. But that's not my question...

What is the deal with those Westy sliding windows? Why are they different
than the regular Vanagon windows? Sure they have screens, but they could
have put screens on the passenger van style windows too. They don't
open as far as the passenger windows. Are they superior in some way I
have not yet discovered? If I have a good, non-rattling set of '82
passenger van windows, why wouldn't I just put them in rather than mess
around trying to fix the Westy windows?

Thanks,
Doug Fitz-Randolph
Freeport, ME