Date:         Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:40:59 -0700
Reply-To:     mark drillock <mdrillock@COX.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         mark drillock <mdrillock@COX.NET>
Subject:      saved by the flashing led, long, boring....
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

This very morning I left home before 5:00 am to head into the belly of
the beast known as Los Angeles, intent on a couple of Vanagon related
missions. An hour and a half later I was on the 110 freeway headed
toward the harbor from the downtown direction. The beast was well awake
but not completely roaring yet. As I neared my exit swept up in the flow
of other cars also trying desperately to get where they were going
before the full madness of the beast was upon them, I tried to assess
the best way to get over and through the dense right lane of slower
semis hauling containers. I made it into my exit lane with a sense of
relief, and then my heart skipped a beat when I noticed a flashing led
on the dash. The coolant temp gauge was reading normal but the led was
blinking. I looked in my mirror to see what looked like a cloud of dust
trailing me, back-lit by the traffic behind me. Uh oh.

After exiting as planned I pulled over on a nearby street to check
things out. Steam was billowing and coolant was dripping off the bottom
of the engine but it all slowly stopped after I shut off the key. I let
things cool a little and then started slowly pouring in water from some
jugs I was carrying. It took about a half gallon and nothing was
dripping. I started the engine and immediately a small stream was
flowing onto the ground from somewhere near the thermostat housing. I
shut it down and slid under to try and spot the leak. I could see a
small split in a hose. I decided to try to nurse it the rest of the way
to my friend Leon's place, where I hoped I could fix it. He does Subaru
conversions as a business and as a result has leftover wbx pieces. It
was my main destination to begin with so the early hour would not be a
big problem though I had intended to get something to eat first. Oh well.

Leon was outside near his shop, and only a little surprised to see me so
early. I told him my problem and he seemed to snicker as he saw the
trail I had left as I turned to park on the street in front of his
place. He led me to a recently pulled wbx and it's various bits that he
did not need for the conversion. The hose I needed was right there,
loose in a pile of stuff. It was the hose that runs from the plastic
coolant tower over the tranny to the thermostat housing. I grabbed it
and went to my van to root around under the rear seat for gloves and
tools. There I spotted a new one of the same hose, still in a clear
plastic wrapper. I knew I had bought a couple of them lately but did not
exactly remember that I had put that one under there.

The engine was too hot to touch right away and since the sidewalk was a
little busy with mothers walking their kids to school I did not feel
like it was a good time to possibly make a big mess on a public street.
We decided to use Leon's van to go on our mission of salvaging Vanagon
parts from a late model Westy that was in a pick-a-part not too far
away. I had brought my van there to carry home the Westy Poptop that
Leon spotted on the van and in decent shape a few days prior. It was
still there when we arrived so I worked on removing it while Leon worked
on gathering other parts for his own purposes. The canvas was shot but
everything else was good, even the stock seals. It took a couple hours
to carefully undo everything but when I was ready Leon helped lift it
down and load it onto a huge cart that the yard provided for such
purposes. We grabbed a few other items too, naturally. The kitchen was
already gone, as were the engine, tranny, power mirrors, etc.

We checked out, loaded up Leon's van, and headed back to his place so I
could fix my van and move my stuff into it. A complete Westy poptop
fairly easily fits inside of a passenger van when the back seat is laid
flat. It takes 2 people of course. With 86+ A/C it is a bit of a squeeze
to load the top through the rear hatch past the A/C support pillars but
it goes ok.

I installed my new hose, added coolant, warmed up the engine, and bled
the radiator.  With my top and other items transferred into it, I headed
off on the second Vanagon related mission, over on the other side of the
beast.

Mark