Date:         Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:49:23 -0400
Reply-To:     David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject:      Re: In Missoula, overfilled oil
Comments: To: "Mike \"Rocket J Squirrel\"" <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
In-Reply-To:  <4C53104A.5030707@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 01:47 PM 7/30/2010 Friday, Mike \"Rocket J Squirrel\" wrote:
>My trust in Steve's Place in Bend, Ore., just went down a whole bunch.
>Last night, when I was unhooking the Westralia from the van, I noticed
>the safety chain was oily. The dipstick revealed that the chimps had
>overfilled the oil when they changed it last week.

Dear Mr. Squirrel,

Spoke to Steve.  His advice:

a)  We put in 4 1/2 qt oil so it's not overfull, or else you added
some.  Check it when stone cold.

b)  [from me] Does the oil on the stick smell like gasoline?  If so
could be washing down the cylinder walls.  It seems unlikely to me,
but there are people I trust who are firm that this can add more than
a quart (of gasoline) to the crankcase under the wrong circumstances.

c) You have a known transmission leak, is this causing the visible
external oil?

d) Call him. (541) 318-9884

Does that help?  He was definitely not receptive to the idea that the
motor had been overfilled. ;-)  I didn't insist, just asked what he'd
like you to do, and the above is the result.  I didn't for example
ask how precisely he *knew* that they'd put in 4 1/2 and not 5 1/2 qts.

Yours,
David
ps -- He'd never heard of Jack Elliott, so there was a bit of a
stumble at the beginning.

pps -- If you want to take some oil out, see if Missoula has a
hardware store (all right, I'm pretty sure it does) and get some pvc
tubing that will just go in the dipstick hole, and siphon some
out.  Remember to spit if you get a mouthful of oil.