Date:         Mon, 1 Jul 2002 11:52:48 -0400
Reply-To:     Barry Mercer <bjmercer@SYMPATICO.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Barry Mercer <bjmercer@SYMPATICO.CA>
Subject:      Green Blood... Yeech!
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              x-mac-creator="4D4F5353"

Hi All!!    My westy has developed a coolant leak... it appears almost
overnight.   Here's what happened:


The camper has been running like a charm.   My son returned from a brief
trip of about 200 km, reported no problems.  I parked the westy in the
garage and the next morning discovered a substantial amount of coolant
on the floor.   My heart sank.  Always somthin' eh ?

In any case I crawled underneath, crawled on top and I cant tell where
the coolant is coming from.  I don't think its the heads cause there is
no long line of drips along the length of the motor.   I do see that the
drips are falling off the end of the oil filter!.  Now, last summer we
had a lovely trip to the US only to have the water pump drastically fail
a car length away from the Canadian border at Kingston Ontario.  That's
another story.   I had to have the westy towed to a shop where a new
water pump and several water pipes were installed.  I assume the water
pump was new and not rebuilt.

I think < actually I've ben praying>  something has worked loose
although its tough to tell when all I can do is crawl underneath the
car... and stuff is so tightly installed in that area.   The water pump
does not appear to jiggle but will move ever so slightly when the belt
is fiddled with.

The camper still has coolant in the tank, the expansion tank, behind the
plate / tag, is empty.  It runs well, except for a noisy lifter, that
comes and goes, and there is no smoke of any colour when I drive the
vehicle... I just took it around the block last night.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Barry Mercer
Sudbury, Ontario

Moo - 88 westy @ 176k Kms