Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2012 08:40:58 -0400
Reply-To: Ken Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Ken Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Subject: Re: What to keep on hand to not be stranded
In-Reply-To: <CAEwp_cQQ4tQ_2+XsaujWxo_uK5J_idkAi5L2RzangabBRMK1NQ@mail.gmail.com>
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My experience with the Vanagon is that the best way to prevent a break
down is to do preventative maintenance. If you are just going back and
forth to town and not traveling far distances then just doing the bare
minimum of maintenance is not a big deal. If you break down you won't
be too far from home or civilization. But going on a trip more than an
hour I only do in a Vanagon that I have inspected, and have a known
service history on. At this point in their lives are vans are in need
of restoration instead of just normal "replace as needed" repairs. Even
if they have lower mileage the head gaskets, coolant hoses and anything
else rubber is suspect at this age.
Most Vanagon owners have break downs because they practice what I like
to call "closed eye maintenance". In other words, they open the engine
bay and as long as there is a motor still there, they think that the van
is ready for a cross country jaunt. The reality is that a trip of that
length requires much planning and forethought to pull off without a
break down. I just got back from such a trip and even though it wasn't
in a Vanagon it was in a 95 motor home so the vintage isn't too far
off. Before we left I confirmed that all of the coolant hoses had been
replaced recently along with all of the belts. I changed the oil,
inspected the braking system, tires, power steering, etc. Then I took
the MH on a trip two hours away as a shake down cruise to try to find
any problems that I couldn't find by inspection. Came back from that
trip and fixed all of the things that I found, then set off on our trip
with a spare set of belts, hoses, antifreeze, oil, transmission fluid
and a tool set. I had also bought a set of plug wires and plugs as they
were suspect but the MH seemed to be running well so I didn't replace
them before we left. I also had a towing service in case it just died
and needed to be towed in.
When driving in many areas in the western US, you can see for miles in
every direction. You can see the road and in front of you and the road
behind you. There were many times that I could probably see 5 to 10
miles and not see a single other vehicle on the road or anything
resembling a house. You can be driving this way for an hour at a time.
At one point after driving for probably 45 minutes like this we can to a
small town in Wyoming and my young son said, "Look buildings!" He was
so excited just to see a village of a few hundred people.
My point is that you don't want to break down in areas like this. The
best way to prevent it is to bring some spares along with you, but an
even better way is to make sure the van has recently done preventive
maintenance done, test it before you take a long trip, and then you
should have a smooth trip. People run into problems when they are doing
repairs at the last minute leading up to the trip, doing the bare
minimum of repairs, ignoring obvious issues with the cooling system or
electrical system...
For long range Vanagon travel:
I pack a spare set of belts, a piece of 7mm fuel line, some clamps, some
antifreeze, some oil, some transmission fluid, and a spare ECU that has
the diagnostic tool built in. Lately I have been running into problems
with the hall sensors on the distributor dying because of age so I would
probably pack a known good distributor as well or just replace my hall
sensor before a long trip as a precaution.
I also buy a tool kit at Auto Zone that is self contained in a box and
17mm and 19 mm wrenches as these kits never contain these two sizes in
wrench form. That should be all you really need.
Ken Wilford
John 3:16
www.vanagain.com
On 10/22/2012 5:34 PM, Marc Perdue wrote:
> Okay, I'm giving my van a new lease on life . . . with conditions. I've
> never had another vehicle have such catastrophic failures that would leave
> me stranded the way the Vanagon does. Mind you, one person's definition of
> catastrophic will be different from another's. When I take the van camping,
> I don't load ALL of my tools to make every possible repair on the road
> (like ruptured coolant hoses), I'm not usually traveling near a decent
> shop, and not usually on weekdays. So I'm going to finally replace ALL of
> the coolant hoses and fuel lines. My plan then is to have certain parts
> on-board that, should they fail, would mean a dead van, but they being
> parts I could replace on the road. I'm starting with the list below and
> wonder what you all would add to it (or take off):
>
> 1) Fuel pump
> 2) Ignition switch
> 3) ECU
> 4) Ignition coil (though I've never had one actually fail...take off?)
> 5) Belts
>
> I'm thinking this might prove useful to someone else too, who knows? So,
> what do you all think?
>
> Marc P.
>
> PS--I ain't talking about rods being thrown threw the crankcase here. BTDT
>
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