Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 21:54:06 -0800
Reply-To: George Wietor <wietorg@YAHOO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: George Wietor <wietorg@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: Rocks and bananas,
my adventures with importing 'Leaky' (very long!)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Great tale. Truly a(n) heroic saga. Could you have
reached in and crimped off a radiator tube? not much
room in there, I suppose. Anyone ever had to resort to
crimping?
Where is your shop? Sis in Rockville needs a visit
from me sometime. Geo.
--- Karl Mullendore <thewestyman@MINDSPRING.COM>
wrote:
> I had been wanting a singlecab transporter for some
> time, to use here in
> Maryland in my Westfalia/Vanagon repair business.
> After passing on a
> beautiful blue one in New Brunswick (too nice to use
> for a work truck!), I
> found what seemed to be the perfect truck, located
> way over in Alberta! What
> the heck, I thought, I need a road trip to get away
> for a few days! So, last
> Wednesday, I flew into Edmonton, and was met at the
> airport by the owner,
> Glen Cook, and his wife. After getting a notary to
> witness the bill of sale,
> Glen drove me through the edge of the big city, so
> that I would not get lost
> on my way out. We stopped at a light, he hopped out,
> and I into the driver's
> seat, and on my way I went. The truck was running
> great, I was cruising with
> the other vehicles out there, ahhhh, on the road
> again. Then in a few hours,
> I noticed steam coming from the rear, so I pulled
> over to investigate.
> Coolant was boiling from the overflow tank behind
> the license plate. I
> thought, oh well, it must just need bleeding. I
> added a bit of water, got to
> the next town where I purchased a pair of cheap
> pliers and some coolant, and
> bled the thing then and there. All was well for
> awhile, when it all happened
> again. This was the way I spent the next few hundred
> miles. Finally, I
> looked closely at the expansion tank cap, and
> noticed a small sliver of
> blue silicone had lodged into the cap, causing it to
> stay in the partially
> open position. I stopped at an auto recycler just
> down the road, which of
> course had absolutely NO Vanagons. Oh well, maybe an
> Audi 4000 cap will
> work, it will hold pressure, but vent to the
> outside. That worked for some
> few hundred miles. I decided to cross the border at
> the town of Estavan in
> Saskatchewan, and chose a entry point where there
> would likely be little
> problem going through. Well, big problem: the
> conformity certificate had the
> wrong VIN printed on it! So, I spent the night in
> Estavan, and the proper
> certificate was faxed to me there. In the AM, no big
> deal at the main border
> crossing at North Portal, except the unfriendly,
> non-smiling woman there
> thought for some reason I was hauling something not
> good, and decided to
> search the whole truck. When she came back to me
> inside the office, she held
> up her 'loot', two nice oranges I had just purchased
> in Estavan. "Can't have
> them, they are probably form Brazil or someplace
> with fruit fly
> infestation". Good grief, what a great gov't we
> have, even protecting me
> from an unsafe piece of fruit! (What jerks, I
> thought, really, couldn't find
> any contraband, let's take his food!) Finally, back
> in the US. What a relief
> to have that crossing business done with! With 200
> miles done with no adding
> coolant, I thought I had the problem licked. No such
> thing, as at that exact
> moment, about 30 miles northwest of Minot, ND, the
> temp gauge suddenly shot
> up. Pulled over, and to my disbelief, the radiator
> was shooting a stream
> straight out into the road. The only place that
> appeared to be a business in
> the small town was a strip bar. Luckily, no
> strippers were on at the time,
> just a few normal folks sipping beers. The owner
> filled about six gallon
> jugs for me, to fill the truck long enough to make
> it to Minot. The water
> still shot from the front, so in desperation, I
> searched through my
> everything I had with me for something to
> temporarily stop the leak. I found
> my baggie of dehydrated bananas, and thought
> 'perfect!'. After carefully
> softening a piece in my mouth, I applied it to the
> hole, and voila! No more
> leak. Made it to Minot, and located a radiator
> repair shop, which kindly and
> carefully soldered the hole shut, even allowing me
> into the shop to help
> out, as they really had no clue how to properly fill
> and bleed the system.
> At one time, three people were on the job, and when
> done, they only wanted
> $40. I expressed my gratitude for dropping
> everything to help me out, and
> off I went. I left the coolant cap loose, thinking
> that all would be better
> with no pressure to cause more holes in the rotten
> radiator. Once underway,
> I resumed my search also for a new coolant cap, to
> no avail, so continued on
> the way, continually stopping every 30 to 50 miles
> to refill the coolant
> again, as for some reason it still wanted to
> occasionally boil over. Once I
> must have mistakenly tightened the cap too much, as
> out in the middle of
> nowhere, it blew yet another hole in the radiator.
> No worries, I have more
> bananas! And the service station had a bottle of
> Bars' leak, not something I
> would normally use in anything I own, but hey, this
> is different now.
> Problem is, there is no cap on the radiator, which
> is the best place to add
> the Bar's leak, if you want it to act quickly. So,
> back inside, I got a
> straw from the small restaurant, poked it through a
> styrofoam cup, and added
> the liquid to the radiator through the tiny bleeder
> hole! Problem is, the
> little pellets would not go into the straw
> willingly, so I dropped then one
> by one into the hole, all 400 or so of them, while
> the frigid wind froze my
> fingers. And, it worked! Yay! For good measure, I
> also applied some more
> bananas! I still needed to add coolant occasionally,
> but managed to make it
> all the way to Ohio, where it suddenly began to
> overheat again! This, of
> course, happened in a construction zone, with no
> shoulders, and also just as
> a traffic jam started due to an accident ahead. I
> inched forward until there
> was a spot wide enough that the truck wouldn't fall
> off the grass shoulder,
> shut it off, and just sat there, reading, snacking,
> and waiting for the jam
> to disperse. It did, finally, so I filled and bled
> one more time. Somewhere
> in the night, I began noticing something seriously
> wrong, a distinct tire
> vibration. Upon inspection, I found that the tread
> plies were separating,
> causing the tread to bulge, and the tread was worn
> very thin. No worries,
> again, I'll just put on the spare. Well, the lug
> wrench broke. Begged
> motorists for a wrench, finally finding the proper
> size, and then the truck
> drove wonderfully smooth again! Made it safely to
> the PA turnpike, through
> the tollbooth, and suddenly, once again, the gauge
> shot skyward, and I
> pulled over. This time, the hole that I had recently
> patched blew wide open,
> and spurted coolant in a stream about 20 feet from
> the truck! I felt that
> this was the end, I would need a tow from here,
> sadly. Then MacGuyver in me
> reawakened, and said "hey, there are still some
> bananas, don't give up
> yet!". So, I carefully cleared the rotten fins
> surrounding the split in the
> tube, and ever so carefully packed pieces of bananas
> into the spots where
> the fins once were, compressing the crack so that
> the Bar's leak could seal
> the hole once more. No thinking that this would
> hold, I desperately searched
> for something to wedge between the patch and the
> sheetmetal of the front, to
> ensure that the patch stayed securely. What I found
> was a perfectly sized
> rock, shaped ever so perfect, like it was there just
> for this purpose. This
> fix lasted all the way home to Maryland, although I
> did need to start adding
> more antifreeze/antiboil to the mix to ensure that
> it would not boil
> terribly driving through the mountains of western PA
> and MD. And I MADE IT!
> I was so thrilled to be home, and waiting there was
> my wonderful girlfriend,
> Pam, who had spent so much time trying every
> resource and joining this
> wonderful list, to coordinate help to get me safely
> back home. I thank all
> of you, for you offers of help, kind words, and
> support, and most of all to
> Pam, without her support I would have probably given
> up
=== message truncated ===
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