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jwallis
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Joined: March 02, 2012
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Location: Austin
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shagginwagon83
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Joined: February 07, 2016
Posts: 3795
Location: VA/TN
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 Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2019 12:30 pm Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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Thanks. I just added this sheet to my van excel file
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Brandon
"Jo Ann" - '83.5 Westfalia EJ22e w/Peloquin
Instagram @joannthevan |
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E1
Samba Member
Joined: January 21, 2013
Posts: 6532
Location: Westfalia, Earth
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| Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2019 12:57 pm Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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Great spreadsheet... but I find it in direct conflict with my preference of ignorance. 
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‘84 Westy, 2.1L with Digijet, 5.43 R+P, GT Gears
"Adding power makes you faster on the straights.
Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere."
— Colin Chapman |
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Corwyn 
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Joined: December 29, 2009
Posts: 2237
Location: Olympia, Washington
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| Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2019 9:53 pm Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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Impressive work. My maintenance philosophy beyond cap, rotor, oil, belts, etc is to drive it 'til it blows; fix it and move on . . .
It's worked pretty well this long .. . .
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'90 White Westy ("The Longship")
FAS Gen V 2.0
The Annual Baja Rally
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"If anything's" gonna happen, it's gonna happen out there"
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djkeev
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Joined: September 30, 2007
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Location: Reading Pennsylvania
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shagginwagon83
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Joined: February 07, 2016
Posts: 3795
Location: VA/TN
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| Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 6:44 am Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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I have a pencil but my hand writing is absolutely awful. I think the last time I actually wrote a paper for school was in 5th grade? After that it was all on the computer. Then the only time I wrote was shorthand for notes, then on tests.
In college (except for Calculus) I took all my notes on the computer. I was the only one of about 30 in my class - but then some followed. There are so many benefits of taking notes on the computer - but basically formatting, bold font, and increase/decrease font size on the fly was easy to learn, and super effective.
Someone asked to copy my notes, I'd just email them a copy. Also I stored my notes on the cloud - which allowed me to access those notes on my phone, tablet, desktop, and laptop.
Sorry to ramble on, but I'm all about the excel document. As long as you save it to a cloud (Google Drive), you can easily update this file on your phone in your van.
Imagine yourself sitting at your desk, about to place a van-cafe order. Well if your 'maintenance sheet' is in your van's glove box, you'd have to get up and walk to your van and get that sheet. Once you see what you need, you have to walk again out to the van to put it back up! We millennial are lazy 
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Brandon
"Jo Ann" - '83.5 Westfalia EJ22e w/Peloquin
Instagram @joannthevan |
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shagginwagon83
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Joined: February 07, 2016
Posts: 3795
Location: VA/TN
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| Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 7:38 am Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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Okay I'll play. This is a huge WIP, its a bit sloppy, but here's what I'm working with. Also, I've saved some 'sheets' that are not mine.
You can label each item per category. Note the "Upgrade Types" sheet contains running totals and count of each category. You can add and modify categories here, you may have to extend the sum and count formulas.
I've been lazy and haven't updated this recently.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/142iTKI8YYILhB2gsyWS3YXp6aJkVU9yRHbey4R_drZQ/edit?usp=sharing
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Brandon
"Jo Ann" - '83.5 Westfalia EJ22e w/Peloquin
Instagram @joannthevan |
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dabaron
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Joined: June 21, 2018
Posts: 2559
Location: Philly, mang
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| Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 8:33 am Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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| djkeev wrote: |
A P-touch label maker to label mileage and date of items replaced affixed to the engine cover area.
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i like the idea that the engine cover becomes the at-a-glance log. brilliant.
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1991 Vanagon GL Camper
i had no idea i wanted to be a mechanic
"burnin oil and cookin coils" -- Destructo
BiWerks Design, LLC |
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djkeev
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Joined: September 30, 2007
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Location: Reading Pennsylvania
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jmillsj
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Joined: November 23, 2017
Posts: 110
Location: Denver, CO
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| Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 9:49 am Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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| dabaron wrote: |
| djkeev wrote: |
A P-touch label maker to label mileage and date of items replaced affixed to the engine cover area.
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i like the idea that the engine cover becomes the at-a-glance log. brilliant. |
I agree. This is brilliant. My wife keeps a small pouch with all service records for her car in the glove box. It's easy for her to quickly review or even show to the mechanic.
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1985 Vanagon Westfalia EJ25
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E1
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Joined: January 21, 2013
Posts: 6532
Location: Westfalia, Earth
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| Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 11:56 am Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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| djkeev wrote: |
| Way too much dependance upon computers today... |
I heard this somewhere. 
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‘84 Westy, 2.1L with Digijet, 5.43 R+P, GT Gears
"Adding power makes you faster on the straights.
Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere."
— Colin Chapman |
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dabaron
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Joined: June 21, 2018
Posts: 2559
Location: Philly, mang
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| Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 12:00 pm Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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| djkeev wrote: |
I also put the various belt sizes, tyoes of oil used, filter numbers, tire pressure, etc etc etc.
It's all covered by the mattress pad so isn't unsightly.
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you have a copy of your "bentley 2.0" in there too?
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1991 Vanagon GL Camper
i had no idea i wanted to be a mechanic
"burnin oil and cookin coils" -- Destructo
BiWerks Design, LLC |
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Abscate
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Joined: October 05, 2014
Posts: 22640
Location: NYC/Upstate/ROW
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| Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 1:06 pm Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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A spreadsheet is perfect for record keeping. I keep my critical stuff on a personal cloud so I can get the right filter/wiper blade/etc at the parts store when the steal the lookup machine.
Ive gotta draw the line at a video on how to use a spreadsheet though.
| Quote: |
| There are so many benefits of taking notes on the computer - but basically formatting, bold font, and increase/decrease font size on the fly was easy to learn, and super effective. |
Those benefits are somewhat offset by the fact that you retain less information and process it more poorly than those who take hand written notes. We see this profoundly in science.
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E1
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Joined: January 21, 2013
Posts: 6532
Location: Westfalia, Earth
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| Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 1:42 pm Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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Yep.
See Kamzcab's signature. Computers make people dumber.
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‘84 Westy, 2.1L with Digijet, 5.43 R+P, GT Gears
"Adding power makes you faster on the straights.
Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere."
— Colin Chapman |
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westydriver
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Joined: July 08, 2017
Posts: 54
Location: Eastside of Nebraska
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| Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 1:48 pm Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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| Nice work OP, appreciate you sharing. Easy to access with an iPad at all times. Easy to read and work with. |
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shagginwagon83
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Joined: February 07, 2016
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Location: VA/TN
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| Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 1:52 pm Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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It's really a personal preference and I agree that you do absorb more information by writing while creating the notes. However if you're gonna spend some time afterwards looking at the notes, which I usually did, then its a decent alternative.
I personally felt that by typing the notes I was more 'active' and alert. I looked at it more as a game to get a great amount of information down.
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Brandon
"Jo Ann" - '83.5 Westfalia EJ22e w/Peloquin
Instagram @joannthevan |
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Mellow Yellow 74
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Joined: October 14, 2014
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Location: Sydney, Australia
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| Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 2:36 pm Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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I replaced the capacitors in my clock but never thought for a nanosecond to record the date and mileage of when I did it.
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Abscate
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Location: NYC/Upstate/ROW
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| Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 2:42 pm Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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I still write a daily activity journal (clients, expenses, notes) which gets imaged and pdf to the electronic version. Its amazing how much more I remember from notes I wrote
It is not a generational thing. Its a brain function thing. If it is complex, to-be-processed-type information, the act of using complex motor skills forces the brain to assimilate the information in an advantageous way.
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pushkick
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Posts: 1366
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| Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 2:56 pm Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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| djkeev wrote: |
Paper note pad
Plus
A Pencil or pen
And
A P-touch label maker to label mileage and date of items replaced affixed to the engine cover area.
A P-touch label on left top of windshield with next oil change mileage on it.
No Wifi needed, no computer crashes that lose all your information.
IMHO......
Way too much dependance upon computers today for simple tasks best done other ways.
Thanks for sharing though, I'm sure there are many out there who don't own a pencil today. |
that is the purpose of computers to relieve people of the more mundane task and allow them to focus on issues that computers cant do. my parents honda civic keeps track of most issues and logs them in the ecu or cpu so they know when to check things and when they should be maintenanced and displays on a screen with mileage etc. my parents are not computer literate and are in their 90's so they really appreciate the system. as well as most people who dont care to maintain records.
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djkeev
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Joined: September 30, 2007
Posts: 32584
Location: Reading Pennsylvania
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| Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:35 pm Post subject: Re: Van Maintenance Spreadsheet for Your Maintaining Pleasure |
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I'm not against computers, I own several.... too many actually.
I am also irritated by them at times, boot times, slow behaviour, crashes, freezes, etc.
For mundane items like when you changed your oil, it really is NOT worth the aggravation.
Make sure you have a good digital connection, click on the App, wait for it to open, scroll down looking for the line you need....... or, glance up at the left upper windshield and see that you have 1,000 more miles before your next oil change is due.
Lift the rear mattress and see that new belts were put on 5,000 miles ago, etc etc etc.
Each tool in my tool box has a use. Some of those tools are better suited for one job than they are for another.
My computers have uses for sure, this just isn't one of them.
And then when the entire system crashes or gets hacked? Now what?
For me, with my experiences, I really prefer to simply use the printed word, not the digital words.
Others feel differently than I...... good for you!
Heck, I still use PAPER maps!!!.
So very yesterday........
Dave
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