Date:         Thu, 28 Mar 2002 18:17:43 -0800
Reply-To:     Matt Ratto <mratto@WEBER.UCSD.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Matt Ratto <mratto@WEBER.UCSD.EDU>
Subject:      introduction, story, questions about new '82 diesel westy[longish]
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi all,

I just bought an '82 diesel Westfalia with 90,000 original miles. I'm slowly
but surely getting used to driving and caring for this beast. I've had some
trials these last few days but I'm hoping it's clear(ish) sailing from now
on. My first trial was that as I was driving back from buying the westy
(about 2 hours away) it all of a sudden began spewing oil. I shut it down
and pulled over. During a series of misadventures, I met a bunch of
fantastical characters - the 300lb muscle guy who, after stopping to help me
push the westy, laughed when I said "do you want to drive?", the helpful(!)
tire store guy, and the VW shop (Valley VW in Temecula,CA ) who didn't
charge me for inspecting the van and stayed late to see it towed to another
shop that worked on diesels. Finally I arrived at Kotter's VW in Escondido
who, diagnosed the problem as a blown-out glow plug perhaps due to bad
injectors, fixed me up with new plugs, relay, and injector nozzles

I've driven the westy a bit, but I'm still worried about it - it seems to
run hot and smokes a fair bit (black smoke). Other than changing the oil and
flushing the cooling system, is there any other maintenance I should carry
out? I just bought the Bentley guide, but it doesn't really talk too much
about preventive maintenance. In part my plan is to upgrade at some point to
a 1.9 TD or TDI but that's at least a year out.

Also, anyone have any good advice about how to get a stripped filler plug
out of an oil pan? That's really the first thing. The next is that there
seems to be a small amount of oil leaking from where the glow plugs enter
the head. Is that something I should be worried about?

Finally, thanks to all for help I've already gotten from the list archives.

best,

Matt
'82 diesel Westy
San Diego