Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 18:23:50 -0500
Reply-To: John <johnpatt@WARWICK.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: John <johnpatt@WARWICK.NET>
Organization: PattonSystems International
Subject: Re: Vanagon questions
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Max/Joyce Wellhouse wrote:
>
> I try to keep the stupid questions to a minimum, but these two need an
> answer, so I guess they're not really stupid.
>
> 1. There is a 6 mm allen head bolt about 2 or 3" behind the point on the
> bottom of the crankcase on my 90GL 2.1 where the tranny and engine meet. I
> unscrewed it thinking I might get the last little bit of engine coolant and
> to my surprise, engine oil seeped out. since my air cooled buses didn't
> have this feature, I'm wondering if this would be a good place to install an
> oil temp. sender(if I could find a sensor with thread pitch that small) or
> whether using the drain plug location would be better.
>
> 2. Would also like to have a coolant temp. sending unit also and thought
> maybe tapping into the thermostat housing might be an option. Are there any
> existing ports that would be less invasive than drilling in that plastic and
> having the sender leak?
>
> Would like to use one gauge and have an A/B switch nearby to switch from one
> temp to the other. Is this a screwy idea?
>
> Dimwitted Moose and Flying Squirrel
Hi bullwinkle,
I'm just plowing thru my back mail when I came across your new years eve
post about gauges and senders. I think you already learned that the 6mm
allen retains the oil pump pickup and should be left alone. I have an
"industrial strength" digital gauge setup (volts, coolant temp, oil
pressure & oil temp) that I designed that I think you would find
interesting. Generally stay away from drilling anything or compromising
the integrity of the crankcase. You can get most sensory info from
threaded, high quality connections. Additionally I incorporated a stand
alone LED sytem that has warnings for: charging rate, 0.3b & 0.9b oil
pressure switch function, coolant thermal load and vehicle frontal wind
load. I really believe that many wasserboxer failures are really the
result of the Vanagon pilot not having critical information soon enough.
Unlike many list members that lament that the wasserboxer is prone to
failure, I believe that the 2.1L is a very reliable, well designed
powerplant with perhaps 1 million KM test miles during VW development.
Unfortunately this marvelous engine is quite intolerant of lubrication &
cooling system shortcomings and must be shut down immediately when minor
but significant support system faults occur. Therefore a pilot
infomation system is the answer.
Regards, JP
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