Symptoms sound identical to what happened to me a couple of years ago. As long as the engine revs are up and/or the van is moving at a deceint speed all seems fine. Slow down and things turn to worms. Like you I could not figure out what was wrong. If yours is like mine your water pump has "partialy failed". On my pump the impeller (the rotor inside the pump that actually moves the coolant) was slipping on the shaft that turns it. The result was that the impeller did turn and pump but at a much slower rate than it should have been turning and pumping. In effect, the only time I really had an effective water pump was when the engine revs were up as that was the only time the impeller was turning fast enough to provide any cooling. What really drove me nuts was that this impeller slipping was not constant. Every now and then symptoms would vanish for hours; the result, I suppose, of the impeller "sticking" to the shaft and working fine as long as it was stuck. But eventually it would again come unstuck and the symptoms would return. Funny thing is that other than this on again off again overheating wierdness there was ZERO other symptoms. No leakage, no noise, no pump shaft wobble, no too tight/loose belts, no nothing.
-----Original Message----- From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com]On Behalf Of Carrington, Tom Sent: Friday, June 23, 2000 10:40 AM To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM Subject: FW: Overheating on 1985 Westie
-----Original Message----- From: scote@ptbo.igs.net [mailto:scote@ptbo.igs.net] Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2000 10:30 PM To: vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com Subject: Overheating on 1985 Westie Can anyone help? My 1985 Vanagon overheats in the following circumstance. The van starts fine and can run for hundreds of miles/klm. If I stop and allow the van to idle it is still fine but when I start up again the van overheats and the light starts flashing. At first I thought it was the termostat. I was in a little town up north, no VW dealer. The mechanic changed the thermostat. Said it was the right one he had checked. Stated he had a hard time getting the coolant back in the system. A hundred klm later I stop, coolant begins spewing out the back. Fill up. Drive on. Several hundred klm later stop again. Overheats. Several VW dealers have checked van and tried to make it overheat. It will not. Fan runs when just idling. I have bled system. Changed pressure cap. Van still overheats after running on highway. Can anyone help? Thank you Susan |
Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of
Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection
will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!
Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com
The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.
Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.