Attention fellow VW owners:  Tired of scaring the hell out of yourself with that fantastic fireworks display every time you accidentally touch the positive wire on top of the alternator with a wrench or screwdriver? After replacing the alternator we cut a notch out of a piece of 1/2" fuel line and slipped it over the battery wire connector. The battery wire was then attached, holding the fuel line in

place!  Beautiful eh?  I can't believe we didn't think this before!  Not shown is the short piece of 3/16" vacuum line that was pressed on over the remaining stud, finishing the job.

This Optima battery landed under our Christmas tree to replace the cheap WalMart battery that we had.  These Optima spiral-cell batteries are expensive but they're the best.  An added advantage is that the acid is in a gel state instead of liquid.  There is really NO maintenance and NO acid leakage.  It can also be mounted on it's side as shown here. This eliminated the one disadvantage of our

fabricated battery shelf; it was hard to get to the posts on top of the battery for cleaning or jumping.

We also wore out our cheap (EMPI?) window cranks.  They always felt kind of squishy and finally the round part of the handle just pulled right out of the drivers side crank. Though we were suspicious of the new generic Brazilian cranks on the left, upon first use it was immediately apparent that they were far superior to the wire-type handles shown on the right. If you have these in your car, do yourself a favor

and upgrade. Post Note: After less than a year, the new window crank broke right where the arm joins the hub!  We are currently sourcing a replacement...

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