Soon after purchasing my Vanagon we installed the GoWesty Auxiliary Battery Kit. Along with the kit, we installed a Battery Tender charger under the driver’s seat to keep the auxiliary battery topped off after prolonged use. We ran the charger’s cable out the front of the driver’s seat battery compartment, then attached an extension cord each time we wanted to charge the battery. The extension cable would have to run out one of the windows which meant bugs could get in the van. It became clear we needed another solution. Click through to see how we installed a retractable extension cord reel. READ MORE
When you park the Vanagon during the summer months it can get hot quickly. A 12 volt oscillating fan can be helpful to move the air around. I like to clip mine on the rear view mirror, or the ash tray lid. The dash board seems to be a favorite location for a fan, but people have different ideas for the perfect fan placement. Where do you mount your fan?
If you have an auxiliary battery in your Vanagon you may want to beef up your alternator wiring harness. GoWesty sells an alternator wiring harness upgrade kit for $40 that will upgrade the entire harness. It consists of the wire that goes from the alternator to the starter, the field wire, and the wire that goes to the fuel injectors. It’s a nice upgrade, but we decided to do a partial upgrade ourselves for kicks. Click through to see how we did it. READ MORE
The fluorescent light in the hard top Vanagon comes with a push button switch. I have always wanted a toggle switch instead, but never gave it a thought until my push button switch died. One of my lights was getting increasingly more difficult to turn on so I knew we had to change the switch. We decided to change from a push button to a toggle switch and results are fantastic. Hit the jump to see how we did it. READ MORE
Everyone who owns a Vanagon should have the GoWesty Auxiliary Battery Kit installed. The kit allows you to have a second battery to run your lights, stereo, etc., while parked without draining your starting battery. We installed the kit with an Odyssey PC1200 battery (44ah) and it works quite well, but the battery is pricey ($250) and it only gave us 44Ah. Ken from Van Again has a brilliant hack for using the GoWesty Kit.
As you can see in the video above, Ken uses deep cycle wheelchair batteries in parallel along with the GoWesty kit. He is able to get more amp hours for the buck that way. There is room to add 4 batteries under the driver’s seat which gives you a total of 88Ah — double the GoWesty battery.
Here are the batteries used. You can buy them from Amazon and have them shipped right to you. I love this hack!
66 amp hours (or more) depending on how many you buy.
I just installed the interior LED upgrade kit from Van Cafe and it is fantastic. These new LEDs use 90% less energy, but provide amazing light. The new bright white light is so much better than my old interior festoon bulbs, and I can clearly see the entire interior of my Vanagon during the day or night if the lights are on. Unfortunately my camera cannot adequately capture how great the improvement really is. The picture above doesn’t do it justice, but trust me, they are awesome!
The kit was easy to install and makes a big difference. The new bulbs are just slightly larger in some cases so you have to squeeze them in there. It’s really not a big deal at all and well worth it. I bought the kid for $30 and the improvement in the map light is almost worth the entire kit. I can finally see in my glove box! I would highly recommend this upgrade to every Vanagon owner. Your eyes and your battery will thank you.
If you’re looking for an upgrade kit you can get one from Van Cafe or GoWesty. I order from both companies on a regular basis and both are fantastic!
We’ve been carrying our EVDO data card with us so we can get online in the van, but that didn’t seem like a Vanagon Hack, so we decided to get a more permanent WiFi solution in the Vanagon. As you can see in the video, we wired the outlet to the stereo for on/off capabilities.
Probably the coolest hack we’ve tried is the green lights over the AC controls. All Vanagon owners know there are no lights for the AC controls. We got some LEDs from Radio Shack and my brother somehow managed to wire them in.
We removed the controls from the dash, drilled some holes and inserted the LEDs. The picture isn’t so good but believe me, it works very well.
Now when we drive at night the A/C controls are illumniated and it looks like it should’ve always been that way.
I tried to take a better picture without the flash that would show the illuminated lights, but it didn’t really work. Sorry.
