it's simple, it just goes around

I have been trying to figure out what to do as far as wheel and tire combination on the new van. It currently has 14" VW stock rims and 215x70R14 tires. The tires aren't rated for the weight of the vehicle and are probably too wide fo the rims. That combination also precludes larger brakes.

The appropriate rim and tire is a religious war in the vanagon community. There is a camp of people who will not go with anything that isn't rated the way Volkswagen originally spec'd the vans. There is a camp of people who say tire technology has evolved in 30 years and if you use a larger rim then you can use a lesser rated tire. Vendors don't document what they are selling. They cherry pick stats and ignore deficiencies. It doesn't help at all that tire vendors have discountinued many of the tires they used to offer in vanagon appropriate sizes.

So I spent a couple of weeks struggling to bring all the pieces together so I could make an informed decision.

( If you're interested in the details of how wheels and tires interact on VW vans, read on.  )

filling the former map light hole in the dash

I noticed a hole in the dash of the van where there wan't anything in our prior van. Some research revealed that in some models there was a map light in the dash. Apparently, a previous owner had ripped it out and not covered the hole. These days people are always filling in spaces on the vans with new accessories, so it didn't take long to find a USB kit to fill in the space.

( Cut for pic spam and project details. )