Brian,
   I saw your post about the fuel gauge and had to put my 2 cent in. 
I've never had a bus or vanagon that had a good working fuel gauge.  My
'79 used to do the same as yours. My current Vanagon doesn't go to full
it almost makes it but not quite.  It drops to half quite quickly and
hold there for a while.  My old Vanagon used to read full then drop to
half after about 20 miles of driving then seemed to read normally from
there.   The good news is that all of the vanagon fuel senders will fit
any vanagon fuel tank. So if you wanted to replace yours it will not be
to hard to find a new one.  (diesels are not special).  I pulled the one
in my diesel and changed it with one from an '85 vanagon. It didn't fix
the problem, but hey it fit! ;)  I imagine that if I read the Bentley
manual I could fix my gauge correctly, but I'm lasy and I've gotten used
to it.=)  I'm not much help but at least your not in this alone. Take
care.
-- 
                            -Jim Digennaro
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