Date:         Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:32:18 -0600
Reply-To:     David McCallum <boris89.david@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         David McCallum <boris89.david@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Denver to San Diego and back - Lost my cool in the desert (a trip
              report)
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Well, once again the bus performed admirably, given the 2000+ miles of
either climbing fairly steep grades or driving through desert conditions. I
only had one incident, but it caused me quite a bit of concern and even came
back to scare me again.

After about 600 miles of fun road trip, about 10 miles north of St. George,
UT, as I'm glancing at the instrument panel I see the coolant and alternator
lights go on. The VW gods were smiling on me, as I was just coming up on an
exit with services. I quickly shifted into neutral, shut off the engine, and
coasted around the exit ramp cloverleaf, over the bridge and had enough
momentum to glide into the gas station and under the gas pump shelter. After
quickly emptying the back of the bus, I removed the cover and immediately
confirmed my snap diagnosis...a broken alt/water pump belt. I could hear the
coolant boiling in the engine, the expansion tank was half empty, and the
overflow tank was completely full and leaking precious coolant. I carefully
removed the overflow tank hose and slowly opened the expansion tank pressure
cap, hoping to depressurize the system to avoid damage and more boiling.

I replaced the belt with the obligatory spare from under the back bench,
withstanding a cardiac moment when I saw coolant pooling under the right
side of the engine...turned out that the overflow tank hose had slipped from
where I wedged it and was draining out! Filled the expansion tank from the
overflow tank using a Nalgene to transfer, put everything back together,
started the bus (so far so good), opened the radiator bleeder (wife revving
the wasserboxer to 2k RPM) to make sure there wasn't an air/steam bubble up
there, let it idle for about 10 minutes. No leaks from the heads and hoses,
no bubbles apparent in the cooling system, we headed back out on the road.

Everything remained stable for the rest of the trip, except for the
squealing replacement belt. Turns out that I didn't tighten it well enough
for the 1/3 wrap around the crank pulley to turn it all under full
electrical load. After retensioning with the help of a Really Big
Screwdriver, no problems at all. Coolant level is stable and I'm hoping that
I got very lucky in not breaching the head gaskets internally or externally.
I'll pressure test the cooling system at earliest opportunity. Any other
testing suggestions, other than empirical observation, to confirm that I
didn't harm the engine?

Other than that, a great trip, although my wife declared that we will never
again cross the Mojave without a functioning A/C. I guess I have a year to
get that taken care of. Thanks for reading!

--
Cheers!

David McCallum
'89 Westy - "Boris"