I just drained all the coolant and oil and can't find any evidence of cross contamination. It runs great with no loss of "power". Is there anything else that would cause the coolant level to rise after driving? It will raise about two to three inches in the coolant fill bottle. I bled the system with the nose raised and all the air seemed to come out. There is no coolant leakage out of the outer water jacket gasket either which last time my head gaskets leaked the combustion gasses seemed to force coolant to leak out of those. Don't know what to look for next. I would hate to tear down my top end to find out it was something else.
-----Original Message----- From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of Frank Condelli Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2007 7:11 AM To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM Subject: Re: Head leak again.... What next? In a message dated 09/02/2007 12:48:59 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, LISTSERV@GERRY.VANAGON.COM writes: I have a 2.1 that was rebuilt top and bottom at 150K and now it seems to be leaking through the inner head gasket again. I have 215K now and the engine runs great but my coolant level will rise significantly during driving and has a slow steady stream of small bubbles in it. I remember this happening last time before a catastrophic head blowout. (engine had a roaring boil coming of the coolant bottle and never started again after cooling off) Is roughly 70K average for a head problem on a rebuild? My real questing is what next. I am still not ready to part with my Vanagon, but I don't have a ton of money to spend on it right now. If I continue to drive it will I ruin the top of the Cylinders requiring more than a top end rebuild? If I do just a top end will I most likely need new heads instead of just gaskets? Should I try to re-torque the current heads or will I most likely just crack them? Thank you for everyone's insight,
If the head gaskets are installed correctly they will not leak - ever ! See my _VW Vanagon waterboxer head & gasket repair_ (http://members.aol.com/Fkc43/gasket.htm) webpage. They are now leaking, corrosion has started , it will only get worse, re-torqueing will do noting but stretch the studs. Maybe they are already stretched and that's why the leaking. New heads vs old heads, if the old ones are not cracked or pitted beyond reasonable reuse use them otherwise it's better to have new AMC heads for many reasons explained in the archives over years of postings. Cheers, Frank Condelli Almonte, Ontario, Canada '87 Westy, '90 Carat, '87 Wolfsburg (Forsale) & Lionel Trains (_Collection for sale_ (http://members.aol.com/Fkc43/trainsal.htm) ) Vanagon/Vanagon Westfalia Service in the Ottawa Valley _Frank Condelli & Associates_ (http://members.aol.com/Fkc43/busindex.html) _Vanagon Stainless Steel Exhaust Systems_ (http://members.aol.com/Fkc43/stebro.htm) _BusFusion_ (http://members.aol.com/BusFusion/bfhome.htm) a VW Camper camping event, Almonte, ON, June 07 ~ 10, 2007 |
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