I am a /little/ ticked off. Before my lovely wife and I agreed to buy this '84 1.9L Westy I paid the FLAPS (Charlies Foreign Car, Encinitas, CA) to give the car the once-over to look for problems, esp. the infamous leaking head gasket syndrome. No problem found, they said. Well, 1,000 miles later and I got blue (or green, no sense starting THAT debate again) drips under the right hand head. Despite the fact that I could not get the right hand bottom cover off the engine (E. Zeno is right: a good quality box wrench can be squoozed onto the right hand front lower exhaust flange bolt head, where my cheap-o Made In Honduras one will not) I could peer through the openings sufficiently to see that the rubber gasket is all goopy with blue (or green) coolant. Darn that FLAPS. Yes, I should-a looked myself. Why didn't I? Because I am new to auto mechanics, my total experience to date comes only from pulling and rebuilding the engine on the Wonderbus. NO experience with waterboxers. So -- live and, as they say, learn. Looks like Mellow Yellow has presented me with a winter project. I was planning to cover it until next camping season, starting it once a week or so to keep the juices flowing. Looks like I'll be pulling the engine, also. I hope the damage is not so bad that I can't use the exciting and famous JB Weld fix! Jeepers there are a lot of hoses! -- Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott 71 Type 2: the Wonderbus 84 Westphalia: "Mellow Yellow (The Electrical Banana)" KG6RCR |
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