Woodburn Report

Had a great day yesterday at the Woodburn swap meet.  After weeks of unbridled rain it all stopped yesterday and the sun came out all day making for a very nice day in the Willamette Valley.

The TDI Eurovan performed flawlessly with no codes, and had no trouble pulling the trailer full of VW parts.  And I must say the Rhein wheels look awfully nice on the Eurovan....


Once we got on the road I couldn't resist taking some pics en route:

This is the Passat TDI cluster in my Eurovan.  With the upgraded 5th gear from the TDI 02A transmission (.756) the engine turns right around 3000RPM at 60mph.




Once we landed it was time to pop the top and start spreading out a bit.

We also had John's pimped out TDI Vanagon on display so there was a whole lot of cool TDI conversion work to show off all day.

Once our parts were spread out on the ground it sort of looked like a heap of junk in neat little piles.  But that's the common thread of a swap meet and sometimes you find a diamond in the rough.

Once we were all set up we had a cozy spread between our two display rigs.

Lots of vintage VWs up at Woodburn.  Some very cool old buses restored to the nines and lots of Beetles in all manner of configurations.

I can just see the Beach Boys rolling down the strip in this cruiser....

Pimped out vintage Westy with period camping accouterments.

By around 1pm the swap meet crowd was dwindling and we made a bunch of free signs and were giving most of our parts away.  My goal was to not come home with anything that I brought up there and I was almost entirely successful thanks in large part to this cool VW guy named James:

James came by our booth early in the day and was looking at some A1 diesel parts and expressing interest in a bunch of other stuff.  I told him to come back by later with his pickup truck and we'll give him everything we have left, and that's what we did.  James was so thankful he forced a 20 spot in my hand and I wished him luck with his VW pursuits.  I recounted to him that I was once in his shoes and that was how I got my start some 10-yrs ago when I bought up a bunch of parts from a VW shop in Portland going out of business.  So the VW A1/A2 diesel torch was passed on to the next generation--and I didn't have to bring all that junk back home!

By 3pm our booth was looking very spartan and that made me very happy.  We made one last sign  "Alles Frei" and went for a walk around the grounds to take it all in one final time.






We closed out the day with one final pic of me next to my TDI Eurovan, finished packing up and then hit the road heading south.

The score of the day was a sweet set of 16" B5 Passat alloy wheels with 5x112 bolt pattern (and you probably know why ;-).  I got the whole set for $75, and only one center cap is missing.  I also picked up a small Miller Tig welder for $50, and John found the front lwr skirt to complete the front fiberglass bumper which I'm going to put on my Vanagon.

All told we came back with very little, made a few bucks, and had a great day carousing with lots of other VW nut jobs.