Date:         Thu, 1 Jan 2004 20:41:03 -0800
Reply-To:     Ben S <phlogiston@ISPWEST.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Ben S <phlogiston@ISPWEST.COM>
Subject:      Re: help needed diagnosing blown head gasket
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

well thank you very much to everyone who responded so quickly on this
holiday.  after reading mike's very astute post, i came up with a new
sequence of events.  yes, i did skimp and use a napa gold non german oil
filter.  yes, i also switched from 20w50 to 10w40 because of my move to
a colder climate.  so maybe the oil pressure issue was caused by this
combination, plus the fact that i was climbing up a steep mountain,
often switching to 3rd gear and running at 4k rpm for extended periods
of time--basically running the engine as hard as possible.  my gf told
me today that after i initially stopped and thought my oil was gone and
added 3qts that she had been blinded by clouds of smoke (strange she
didn't tell me this til now).  so perhaps i saw a dry dipstick because
of the steep hill i was on and overfilled the oil, causing the smoke.  a
few miles later, the oil got all hot again and i lost pressure...

so with my head full of this optimistic chain of events, i went out and
bought a compression tester.  now i've never done a compression test
before so i'll describe my test methodology in case i messed something
up.  i pulled the wire from the ignition coil, and one at a time removed
a spark plug, installed the comp gauge, cranked the engine for 5 or so
seconds, read the pressure from the gauge, reinstalled the plug and went
on.  because many of you instilled in me a fear of damaging my engine, i
did not get the car up to operating temp before doing this test.  i had
run the engine for a few minutes to get the van over by the garage where
i had power for a light, but the coolant temp gauge was still pegged at
the bottom when i shut her off.  considering all this, i measured about
120 psi at each cylinder.

is this an indication of the integrity of my head gasket?  or could the
fact that the engine wasn't hot have invalidated these test results.  do
i need to pressure test the cooling system to completely rule out a
blown head gasket?

i had drained the oil last night to look for water contamination (didn't
see any) so today when i refilled, i used 20w50.  do you guys think it's
safe for me to drive around a little and get the engine up to operating
temp and see if my clouds of smoke go away and if the oil pressure light
comes on again?  what is different about the american oil filters that
can cause a low pressure condition?

again, thanks a ton to everyone who provided me with advice on this...
 in return, here's a helpful hint for when you have to work outdoors in
sub freezing temperatures because your van is too tall to fit in the
garage:  after my fingers went numb during the few minutes it took to
refill the oil, i used some medical tape to affix a handwarmer packet
(the kind that gets warm when removed from the package and exposed to
air) to the underside of each wrist so that the blood flowing into my
hands was pre heated.  i guess i should just get some mechanix gloves,
but i didn't have any and i don't like working with gloves on, and this
worked great anyway.

Ben.


Mike Collum wrote:

>Hi Ben,
>
>So far, nothing you've said makes me think you're getting combustion
>gasses into the coolant.
>
>If you didn't use a Mann or Mahle filter then this could be the
>culprit.  Especially if you went to a lighter weight of oil for the
>colder conditions.
>