Many Vanagon owners install fog lights or running lights on their vans. They provide extra light while driving as the stock Vanagon lights are rather wimpy. They also provide a different character to the Vanagon depending on where you mount them. There are many light kits available with several placements to choose from. You can get round or rectangle lights to light up the road in front of you, and the following are only a few examples.
GoWesty sells a glovebox LED light kit for about $38, but since I already had the LED lights we decided to make our own kit. The first purchase was this micro switch to tell when the glove box is open. It arrived from Amazon in two days and we were ready to roll. Click through to see how we did it.
This ashtray mounted volt meter, USB port, and level looks pretty slick. We have seen other ashtray mods, but this one adds a level. Very handy for those who may living in their vans. It’s another ingenious product by uniWerks Design. You can purchase these in brown or black, and any combination of power ports, volt meter, and level. Check out uniWerks Design for more info.
If you are interested in a new look to your instrument cluster, you can check out this backlit upgrade kit. Campervanculture.com sells this upgrade kit for about $88 US. The only problem is they are in the UK so you will have to see if they can get it over to you. They’re sold out at the moment, but promise to have more of these in stock soon.
In case you don’t have enough light in your Westy, you can follow a fellow Westy owner’s installation of swivel LED lights on the ceiling. People find all kinds of ways to add lights to their Westys, but this is one of the nicest installations we’ve seen. At $39 these lights look to be a great deal. Click through to see how it’s done.
Vanagon owners love gauges. We have already seen several gauge placement ideas, but this gauge setup caught my eye. It comes from a 1982 Vanagon previously owned by Rick Gordon. The mount is big, but aimed up at just the right angle for viewing. I’m not sure it would fit a Vanagon with an automatic transmission due to the shifter, but I like the placement. You can find other gauge ideas here. You might also notice an organizer mounted on the dashboard.
Tags: Gauges
We purchased the GoWesty Auxiliary Battery Kit back in 2007 and were very excited to have a house battery that would run all of our gadgets without draining the starting battery. The installation was easy, but the kit never lived up to its promise. We were going through batteries so often and couldn’t figure out why. We eventually discovered the kit was severely underpowered and designed poorly. GoWesty has since improved the kit with a larger solenoid, but the wire they use is still small so we opted for something a little better. Click through to see what we did.
File this one under more Vanagon gauge placement ideas. This owner decided to put a couple of gauges in the A/C duct. What a perfect place to have them available, but out of the way. One thing is for sure, these gauges will never overheat.
Tags: Gauges