Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 19:15:27 -0400
Reply-To: Stephen Steele <steeles@HORIZONVIEW.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Stephen Steele <steeles@HORIZONVIEW.NET>
Subject: '84 Westy Oil Press Problem/ Beaver Road Kill?
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Karl, et al:
My '84 Westy (Fritz) has been exhibiting the dreaded oil pressure blues. I
bought it with the understanding that it had OP problems...the trip last
fall from AZ to Southern OH was uneventful and I have logged a couple of K
miles on it since. Recently. however, the OP light has been coming on and
the gauge is showing lower than before.
Before I tried anything, I decided to get a baseline for OP performance.
Yesterday, I took a 45 minute each way trip to our regional (used to be
"our" local) Boy Scout camp to visit with my sons.
The route has a ten minute run at 65mph, ten minutes at 55mph and then 10
minutes of back country, hilly roads at 30 mph, finished up by 15 minutes of
crawling up and down a dirt lane with major hills at 10-30 mph...depending
upon oncoming traffic and whether you get behind a "city slicker"
unaccustomed to the road.
Anyway, the van pulled away at 25-30 #, admittedly low, but normal for
Fritz. Quickly, as it warmed up the OP dropped to 19-20# and stayed there
for the first two legs of the trip; dropping to 4-5 and red light showing
proud at any idle or stop. The country road and dirt road showed a OP of
15# and steady until the end of the dirt road, at which the OP dropped to
about 8-10 #. YUK!
After a short meeting (35 minutes), I reversed the route and the van
performed as before. I must say here that the engine sounds wonderful and
runs very well....if it weren't for that idiot light and the OP gauge
installed by the PO, I could be driving in IGNORANT BLISS! Waiting for the
other shoe to drop.
After returning from the trip, I pulled the OP sender unit from between the
left side cylinder tubes and put in a calibrated OP gauge from a friend's
garage and compared it to my onboard gauge...The onboard reads 2-3 # low and
also sends the info to the idiot light! Some relief, but I still don't like
the running pressures, even with 2-3 # added.
A listee last week in a pmail suggested that I could possibly gain a little
# by either stretching the spring a little or adding a spacer of some kind
to the inside of the oil pressure relief valve. So I tackled that. The
spring was 63 mm and I stretched it to 68mm. Unfortunately the stretching
caused the spring to lean to one side and it caused the 'stopper' to bind a
little when placed back in the housing. A ZERO OP resulted. After about four
attempts to straighten the spring the OP came back up and read about 2-3 #
higher. As an extra measure I added a can of STP to the oil.
Last night I had to repeat the above trip for a very special overnight at
the camp. For the first two legs OP read: 21-25#. The idle and stopped OP
was at 5-6 # and the last leg was stayed at 19-23 #....horray! The return
trip this morning was about the same. BTW on the way back into town, I saw
something I have never seen before ... a dead beaver (very large male) on
the side of the road, obviously a road kill. I stopped and went back to
check it out. I have watched a fairly large beaver population (at the camp
about six seven miles away from the kill) off and on for thirty years; but I
have never seen a beaver road kill before. I am sure some of our neighbors
to the North will have some comments on this.
ANYWAY, adding the two factors of low readings and 2-3 more pounds OP from
the spring stretch ( and the STP ?); I am ready to take on the eight hour
round trip tomorrow for the Central Ohio Westies, vans, and busses Campout
in Beaver Creek State Park!
With fingers crossed...
--
Stephen Steele*
Chillicothe OH
'91 Caravelle "Hans"
'84 Westfalia "Fritz"
'81 Diesel Rabbit "Ol' Yeller" by PO
'90 Jetta GL 16 yo Sons' "together" car
'74 MGB "Terrance" My first car...yep, I've kept it since '74
'93 Chevy S-10 I hate it ... but sometimes I need a truck
*all rights reserved/no portion of this document may be reproduced w/o prior
written permission
