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Date:         Wed, 22 Jan 2003 17:01:07 -0500
Reply-To:     Data Services <dataservices@ATTBI.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Data Services <dataservices@ATTBI.COM>
Subject:      Tiico in Winter
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi All;

I ran into an interesting, but initially scary, little item in my 83 Tiico Westy the other day. It's been pretty cold over here in the North of Boston lately. Cold enough to hear lots of noises one's bus only makes in winter. I came out of work the other day to find a small pool of oil by the back of my vehicle. 'Couldn't be mine', I thought gleefully to myself. New motor just 20k ago wouldn't do that - even if it was made in/for South Africa where, I suspect, it doesn't get the kind of cold we're having. Well, just to be on the safe side, I got down on the ground and took a look. One gets used to that if one owns a Vanagon. To my surprise, there was oil on my muffler. Not sprayed over, but dripped down. 'Must be left over from the last time I added oil' I thought (it just occurred to me that the Tiico Does Not fill oil from that area, just antifreeze - talk about grasping at straws). I checked my oil level, and aside from the dipstick being kinda oily, everything looked OK. Seemed that way too, until on my way home I noticed smoke in the rearview mirror. Pull her over into a parking lot, shut it down and headed to the engine compartment with dread running colder in my blood than the 19F it was outside. Sure enough, oil down there. Where the he** is it coming from? No obvious drips or leaking seals and I hadn't noticed any strange noises on the road. Plenty of oil on the stick, so let's start-er-up and see what happens. Starts right up, sounds fine, and inspection shows no leaking oil! Shut it off, and lo and behold, oil squirts by the dipstick out the end of the diptube and dribbles down onto my muffler. That explains the strange oil marks on my muffler, but not the cause. Being too cold to play outside, and not a huge oil loss, I drove the bus over to my mechanic, James, at Small Wheels (a white knuckle ride, senses wide open). He seemed incredulous at the crankcase ventilation system failing on so new a motor (he did the install), but we removed the valve and tube assembly, a quick single screwdriver job. A little bit of water came out one end. Upon inspection, nothing else would. Apparently, condensation had built up water in the tube. The past few weeks I had not taken the bus on any longer drives, mostly back and forth to work. A mere 7 mile, 10 minute drive. Enough to warm it up (condensation), but not enough to drive the built up water from the tube. A few single digit days in a row were enough to freeze that sucka tighter than a (insert favorite saying)!! We filled the tube on one side of the valve with water and nothing came out the other. We filled the tube with very warm water and, after a moment, it gushed out the other end. A thorough air dry and reinstallation and I was on my way. A day or two to watch, problem appears fixed, my pocket is none the lighter while my story bag has another "good" addition. I love it when things work out, and we all could use a few more things in life to work out! Roll On

Dave B. 83 Tiico Westy (the bus) 83 WBX Westy 59 S04 Westy (mostly)


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