Date:         Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:21:37 -0700
Reply-To:     Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: flashing coolant light purpose
In-Reply-To:  <BAY152-ds40F11B5DDF273785F5295A00C0@phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

  My van has an inline four from VW as it's power.
  When I got the van, light flashing away, the Previous Owner said it was
some kind of wiring glitch he had never take time to track down.
  When I got the van home, I did all my normal 'new to me' vehicle work:
Changed all the fluids and checked everything I could.  Of course, I checked
the coolant level first thing before I even started for home (full right up)

  Being unfamiliar with Vanagons, I ended up with air in the cooling system
after a coolant flush and didn't realize that cold air from the heater was
"bad"...air in the system, even though the pressure tank was full right
up....light still flashing away anyhow...So I ended up with a blown
headgasket, eventually....
  With helpful advice from the list, I learned about bleeding the system and
the symptoms of air locks and all the odd behavior of the Vanagon.
  On my inline the temperature gauge sender is 'default "cold" '
reading...So when I caused my faulty headgasket and my coolant level was
suffering at times, I could easily tell by the temperature gauge...it would
go 'cold' when the coolant level got low....meaning the motor was ready to
overheat...So very "Vanagon", right? And the heater would blow
cold....except sometimes it would give a few seconds of heat, then
cold....odd.

  I watch my gauges.  I hated that flashing red LED in there all the
time...and it's now been blocked off for about 60k miles of hard driving.
I watch my coolant temp and I watch my oil temp.  I check my oil and my
coolant level at ever fill up at the gas station.  I am sure I could
eventually make that LED blinker behave properly (vanagon proper) if I
wanted to keep at it.  Maybe I will, someday.
  Don Hanson

On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 7:03 AM, Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@hotmail.com>wrote:

> That is partly correct. The main purpose is to get your attention before
> any
> overheating actually occurs. Except for loose hose clamps and other causes
> of hoses suddenly falling off or pipes rusting through most coolant leaks
> start out small. As the coolant falls below the sensor there is still
> enough
> for the pump to maintain circulation and you can usually get off the road
> before the cooling system becomes compromised. The other major coolant
> system failure is loss of water pump drive. This is covered with the
> alternator warning light but the operator has to know to check that. Often
> the light comes on and the driver thinks that only the alternator failed
> and
> keeps driving until the overheat-steam-blown hose event occurs.
>
> Dennis
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
> Edward Maglott
> Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 8:36 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: flashing coolant light purpose
>
> I thought the reason for the low coolant light was that the temp sender for
> the gauge is not in the engine like in a normal car.  It's remote in the
> thermostat housing.  So if you get a sudden loss of coolant the gauge might
> not even register elevated temp because there would be no hot coolant
> hitting the sender.  Is this right?
>
> Thanks,
> Edward
>
> At 11:04 AM 9/21/2011, Don Hanson wrote:
> >  I probably would not even own my vanagon now if I'd heeded that LED
> >warning light, which was flashing when I bought the van near Tacoma and
> >drove a few hundred miles home.  In fact, it may *still* be flashing,
> >over 65k miles later...I just taped it over, after about 3 frustrating
> >attempts to make it work consistently and correctly.
>