VANAGON archives -- June 2000, week 2 (#544)

Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 11:22:08 +0200 Reply-To: Peter van Marwijk <peter@MEDIAWEB.NL> Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com> From: Peter van Marwijk <peter@MEDIAWEB.NL> Subject: My 87 vanagon seems to be overheating... Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

Hi,

I sort of posted this question about three weeks ago, but since the problem re-occured (actually never left), I'm trying again, especially since I have narrowed it down a bit (I think).

The problem is pretty simple: The temperature indicator light starts blinking once in every while. I then have have to get out of the car, open up the engine hatch and let the pressure of the coolant reservoir on the right (by the way, it's a 1.6 Diesel). I can then get back behind the wheel and proceed as if nothing happened, for hours if I wanted to.

Thing is, I can't get my finger on why it is happening. It happened four times so far and three out of those four times I couldn't really believe it was overheating (just a (really) short drive). And there doesn't seem to be a pattern. I can drive for hours at top speed without it happening.

My own guess is (and that's really just a guess because I'm a terrible newbie) that somehow the cooling system gets sucked dry and the engine really is overheating because there's no coolant cooling it... I checked the coolant (behind the license plate, cool feature) and it was filled to the max. So how can it be sucking dry? Last time I had to release the pressure (this morning) there wasn't any coolant visible in the reservoir-on-the-right. When I release the cap a bit, it comes way up again and the hose running from the left of the reservoir seems to be getting coolant again.

Any thoughts on this problem? New pressure cap? Different coolant? Bigger, better hose from and to the main reservoir?

Thanks for your comments,

Peter.

---------------------------------------------------------- "This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic" - Terry Pratchett - ---------------------------------------------------------- Peter van Marwijk, Concept & Design Mediaweb, Internet Integrators (http://mediaweb.nl) P.O. Box 207 - 2200 AE - Noordwijk - The Netherlands Phone : +31 71-3641168 Fax: +31 71-3641165 Email :pvanmarwijk@mediaweb.nl ICQ: 3773451 ---------------------------------------------------------- Katwijkse Branding Surfclub -> http://kbs.nl

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