Brake booster coupler - the resolution

Bostig gave me the name of a local (to them) Ford parts expert, who was very helpful.  He remembered having dealt with this problem some months ago, and after some research, he called me back and told me that he'd originally found a catalog error, in that the part was separately numbered, but not labeled as such in the catalog itself.  With the actual part number, it was easy to order the part, and it arrived last Friday (17th).  Here's a series of photos of the part, whole and disassembled:

From the top . . .

From the side - note teeth at bottom

Disassembled

In the bottom photo, the gray part at the top was already inserted into the intake manifold.  The row of teeth at the bottom are angled outwards, which holds the gray part in the manifold.  I decided that trying to pull the old coupler out would result in tearing of the hole in the intake, and risk damaging the seal that the outside O-ring makes.  So, I carefully worked out the red plastic ring shown at bottom, which also released the interior O-ring.  I was able to remove the old O-ring from the existing coupler, insert the new O-ring (with some WD-40), and then insert the new vacuum pipe and red locking ring.
It's ready for action, and I hope that the seal is good.  A small leak won't affect braking, but (like any air leak after the air mass sensor) will cause fuel mixture problems.

Just as we solve one problem . ..

. .. we get another.  I've been struggling to post on the blog, but was unable to enter and save any post text.  It turns out that the Blogspot posting application no longer supports Internet Explorer.  So, we have to download the recommended browser, Chrome (surprise!), and move everything over from IE.  Not a big chore, but it took awhile, and though Chrome is much faster than IE, there are still some sites that I use, especially related to my internet satellite work, that require IE.  I had really liked having only one browser to keep updated, but there we are.  Now, back to the main show.

What's left?

We still have to run the new throttle cable, connect the shift rod (I hope the new parts arrive soon), and connect and fill the cooling system.
The cooling system diagrams shown on Bostig's documentation do not cover the case of a vanagon with the optional rear heater, which ours has.  However, the automatic transmission models have a similar setup, with the transmission oil cooler taking the place of the heater that our van has, so I don't foresee a problem.  I'm also having a problem obtaining the Ford proprietary coupler that connects the brake booster vacuum line to the intake manifold.  The local folks aren't sure what it's called, and I may have the same problem with the Ford dealer up north.  If I need to order this (likely), I may plug the intake manifold and run through the start-and-monitor cycle that is done before taking it on the road.

Power Steering

The old high-pressure line is re-used to connect to the "new" pump, after it's mounted to the engine.  I found that the old line's orientation, length, and stiffness made this connection very difficult, but I eventually got it done and tightened up.
With that done, I started to slide out from under to continue the job, and found that one of the copper crush washers had slipped out during my struggles to get the banjo bolt started, and was sitting on the floor under the pump.  So, I did it all over again.
The old PS reservoir is also re-used, with an new supplied bracket.  That installation was easy, but then I found that I couldn't connect the new supply line from the reservoir to the pump, since the intake elbow on the pump was pointing up toward the reservoir, which didn't allow sufficient clearance to allow the hose to bend.  After fooling around a little, and even trying to fit the old and more flexible VW hose (it was too small for the pump inlet pipe), I went back and studied the various photos of installed pumps on Bostig's website.  I saw that the elbow on their pumps was parallel to the ground, not pointing up.  So, since I had re-checked my pump model number and made sure it was the right one, I decided that the elbow must be capable of being moved.  I found a round bar that fit into the pipe, and carefully twisted until the pipe moved, and re-aligned it so that it was "flat" instead of pointing upward.  I don't know what I'd have done if it broke.

Here's the final installation.  You can see a little broken paint at the base of the elbow there below the reservoir.  The hose connection to the reservoir puts a fair amount of tension on the lower nipple; I hope it doesn't cause a problem later on - I did the best I could in trimming and adjusting the hose.

Tach mod and MIL installation

There's not much interesting about the tachometer mod.  I've taken the instrument cluster out of this vehicle so often, due to the speedo problems, that I could do it in my sleep.  So, this was a quick job, aided by the fact that I have all the soldering/desoldering tools and experience using them.
One thing that is worth a photo - for the MIL, I need to find a source of switched 12v to power the light.  I pored over the VW wiring diagrams, but I'm only mostly sure I've correctly identified the track that feeds power to the instrument cluster through the plug "T14", which is slipped onto the edge of the plastic circuit card on the instrument cluster.
As I was looking over the instrument cluster connection, I noticed (for the first time in how many years) that there's a legend next to each trace, on the hidden back side of the circuit card that folds over the "plug":

Didn't save my bacon, though.  It may not be clear in this photo, but the labels are in German, and abbreviated, to boot.  Pin 5 is "+UHR", which goes to the clock, so we know that's unswitched 12v.  The only other candidate is pin 8, labelled "+ALLGEN." or "+ALLGEI." - can't tell which.  I'm pretty sure that's switched 12v, but if anyone knows better, drop me a line.  Once I re-attach the battery, of course, I can find what I need with a voltmeter.

Wiring installation complete

The wiring harness prep consists of adding the modified Ford Explorer ECU to the supplied relay board, then installing these into a steel mounting cage for installation under the rear seat of the van, where the original VW ECU was.  Here's the completed ECU box, ready to go in:

It's quite a bit taller than the VW unit, so I'm going to have to check to ensure that it clears the bottom of the seat when I install it (the location is under the rear seat).

There is now a short intermission, while Joan feeds the various plugs and cables through the 2" hole inside the Vanagon, to me under the van as I guide them into the right starting positions.

The major part of the harness runs around beneath the top edge of the engine compartment, like the old harness did.  Here's a shot of one of the busy areas at the front (driver) end of the engine compartment, showing how neatly it goes where it needs to.  Since the various plugs emerge from the harness near to the connectors they go to, it's almost a ten-minute job to fasten it down and plug almost everything in.  Three exceptions, to be covered later:  the speed sensor, which has to be installed, the wire to the Malfunction Indicator Light MIL) and the new light, and the fuel pump wire, which will have to be routed to the fuel pump where it's mounted next to the base of the sliding door.

Now I've mounted the ECU and added a tiny grommet to feed out the MIL wire.  You can see the two pins that held the old ECU to the top and left of the new one.  I found that I could easily mount the new unit, using the threaded stud at the bottom of the old unit in the center hole of the bottom of the new mount, then using a standoff on the top left.  The right-hand top corner is mounted with a stainless steel screw, since that location emerges inside the wheel well, and even though I treated the area with rustproofing, I wanted to cut the chance of corrosion failure.

I would have taken a photo of the stud, but I'd left the camera out on the bench when I was drilling and mounting.  You have to climb in and out of the well behind the seat by crawling over the motor, so I didn't go back out for a photo.

A correction regarding the fuel return

After further tracing of the fuel lines, during the install of the MIL wire to the front of the van, I found that the return connects to the very bottom of the rear of the fuel tank, easy to reach.  However, it's secured by several Oetiker clamps and seems in good shape, so I'm sticking with my resolution to replace this line later in the spring, when I can do it outside, since I can't see any way to avoid spilling enough fuel for it to be dangerous.