Date:         Wed, 7 May 2003 14:48:59 -0700
Reply-To:     Craig Oda <craigoda@COMMUNITYBUILDERS.INFO>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Craig Oda <craigoda@COMMUNITYBUILDERS.INFO>
Subject:      Re: head internal leak. Any chance of sealer working
In-Reply-To:  <OF9208ED31.8F29281E-ON85256D20.0003D73B@cit.canadair.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Shawn and the rest of the Vanagoners, my gut feeling is that I'll have
to take at least one of the cylinder heads off and replace it.  However,
if this engine block seal works, I'll let everyone know.  Right now, I
flushed my cooling system with water using this nice Prestone "T"  I
recommend the 8 bucks or so for the "T" for people flushing their
cooling systems.  I ran the block sealer for 30 minutes, then drained
the stuff.  The back of the can says to wait 24 hours before flushing,
so I'm going to drive a different car to work tomorrow and then flush
again.  After the next flush, my plan is to put plain tap water in for
the leak test.  If it passes, I'm going to drain half and put 2 gallons
of phosphate-free coolant.  If it doesn't pass, I'm going to take off
the exhaust manifolds from one side of the cylinder head and see if
water spits out.

If anyone has advice, please send it to me.

About the low cost of the engine.  Bob, the cool guy in Tacoma that sold
it to me didn't know if the engine was working or not.  He bought a
trashed vanagon for the transmission.  He had fortunately already
trashed his waterboxer for an inline 4 VW (I think golf) engine.
 Unfortunately, these conversions can't pass smog in CA (at least I
don't think they can).   I guess I need to pass smog.  I didn't have the
cash for the Subaru conversion and the rebuild costs of my existing 1.9L
waterboxer were looking pretty high, so I took a gamble and bought a
sight-unseen engine on eBay.  Thanks to the vanagon people on this list,
I found ForwardAir for the shipping, which was cheap.  I got the engine
to my garage and was amazed that it was in good shape.  Dropped the
engine in the bay and it fired up.... wow.  what a surprise.

It runs a lot smoother and has more power than my old 1.9L.  Compression
is about 110 to 125 on all four cylinders.  Oil pressure is good, even
at hot idle.  My old 1.9L had good compression but the oil pressure
sucked.  It also had really crappy power.  I'm not sure why.  Damon said
that if the compression was good, then the power really shouldn't
change.  However, for some reason, there is a big difference between my
old and my current engines.  If anyone knows why the power is different,
let me know.  It's really great to be able to go the speed limit on
I-280 and not have the big semis honk and constantly overtake me.

Now, if I can just solve this problem with the white steam from the
exhaust....

Regards,
Craig


Shawn Luft wrote:

>I was reading about your 'snake oil'.....
>
>You know the old indians used to just add a shot of transmission fluid into
>with the oil..... and i imagine it does similar stuff.  It's thicker and
>tends to stick to little places where oil is leaking through.
>
>Anyways, good luck.  The new engine sounds like a good deal.
>
>Regards,
>Shawn.
>
>

--
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'83 Westy Watercooled
'77 Bus Camper
Living near San Francisco Airport
Working in Palo Alto, CA