Date:         Sun, 8 Jul 2001 21:06:03 -0400
Reply-To:     John Anderson <jander14@WVU.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         John Anderson <jander14@WVU.EDU>
Subject:      Re: overheating, radiators, water pumps, whatever
In-Reply-To:  <126.11aba3e.2879de67@aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>
>>
>> My first act would be drive it up a bank, pop the grille, bleed her.
>
>
>
> How are you bleeding the system from up there?  When I replaced the two
main
> water pipes on my '84, I pointed it DOWN a hill, and ran it at about
3500rpm
> while I filled the reservoir from the back.  Worked fine for me, and took
all
>
> of about 15 minutes.



whatever.

That is all I'll say on the issue, you want to go looking for a Vanagon
bleed procedure, go to the '95 archives and look for my name.  I've
owned and bled more waterboxers than most of you will ever touch.
2 '83s, '85, '86, '87, '90 and countless for friends.  The downhill idea
is actually intrigueing and I'd thought about it but you'd have to sit the
van on its nose to get the air out of the radiator, that front hose bends
90 degrees and no way in hell you'll ever kick all the air out.  The
procedure is simple, slam the van up a hillside or a set of ramps, pop
the grille, pop the screw.  Takes about 2 minutes after warmed up,
done.  I don't find screwing with the rear bleed screw does a whole
hell of a lot, but I usually do it by the book anyway.

On the subject in general, I've never ever had an overheating problem
on any waterboxer if the heads and stock cooling system were sound.
Once I sprung for a lower temp thermo for one of them for the hell of it
and the van ran worth crap until I swapped it back.  In good shape there
are no restrictions and the system is in no way "marginal."  And my
sister drove one of them in AZ with A/C etc for a year.  If you have
problems, you have problems, they are not in the design or the system.
Find out what is wrong and fix it.  The things have massive radiators,
massive quantities of coolant, solid water pumps, etc.  I replace the
pumps as matter of course with the heads if around 100k miles but
I've never really needed to, just did it.  I've had one radiator fail to a
leak, never one "plugged."  But I do change coolant every few years
and I don't ever use wonder stuff to plug em up.

YMMV
John
jander14@wvu.edu