I'm talking about the hinges in the middle of the lifting
struts.  They have an extremely serious design flaw and if not taken
care of you are headed for a nasty fall.  The pictures at
http://picasaweb.google.com/dbeierl/VanagonPopTopHingeTroubles#  will
show how to evaluate the situation and a possible repair.  There are
no doubt many ways to repair this; the one I used is based on what I
had conveniently available, i.e. a lathe and some bronze round
bar.  There's a discussion on Samba involving this in which the
repair was done by welding.

The basic cause of the problem is that the part of the hinge that
bears on the center tube is much too thing and acts more like a knife
than a bearing.  The rather frightening damage shown in the photos
happened between 1984 and 2004.  Another cause is that as Scott
points out, this stuff never gets preventive lubrication.

Yours,
David