Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2012 17:38:10 -0800
Reply-To: Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: coolant leak story
In-Reply-To: <50B69411.1030707@turbovans.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 2:45 PM, Scott Daniel - Turbovans <
scottdaniel@turbovans.com> wrote:
> Hi Don..
> let's put it this way ...'You don't want to know what is involved with
> removing a syncro gas tank."
> It's a very intense not-fun job.
>
>
> I'm on the freway near Grenada Ca ....going 65ish to 70. My coolant LED
> starts flashing.
> The temp needle is reading right in the middle, perfectly normal.
> I probalby checked front heater function - got warm air coming out of it.
> So I figure ..
> it 'could' be a genuine low coolant level warning ..and temp is still OK
> as there's enough coolant to cool the engine still.
>
See? That's what I mean about the systems in the VW.... "It could be
a genuine low coolant level warning...." Scott writes...... This from a
guy who makes his living working on Vanagons and was driving his own
personal vanagon...and even he was 'doubting' the flashing liight for
coolant level. He could just as easily at that time, had a loose ground
wire on his temperature sender too, and been seeing 'Normal' at that
temperature gauge when that 'iffy' coolant level light began flashing.
That would have been curtains for his motor on Siskyou Summit......
I've seen my temperature gauge stop working with a loose wire.....For
quite some while my temp gauge was unpredictable....up and down without any
reason I could see....I thought it was a thermostat problem at first,
changed out the water pump, too. I did lots of stuff and finally found the
sender wire was making only partial good contact.....Now it seems to work
ok again.
With an oil temperature gauge, in addition to the other systems to warn
you, you can confirm when your motor might be running hot.....If you lose
coolant your oil temp will go sky high PDQ! And you can see the oil
pressure decline as the oil temp goes up....Hot oil and low Oil Pressure
means stop NOW.....to me anyhow.
>
> So ..I could have pulled off at little 'no where' Grenada..
> but I decided to go the next 8 miles or whatever to Yreka where I know
> there are parts stores etc.
>
> For some reason I went all the way to the north end of Yreka ( and there's
> a NAPA Flaps at the south end too I think.)
> I pull into a resturant parking lot ..
> SPOOSH ! ..coolant all over the place underneath in front ..
> A metal insert has gotten out of place on one of the main plastic
> coolant pipes.
>
> This is a 'standard' failure on 86 and later vanagons btw. I've seen it
> quite few times. Sometimes at the rear end, but more commonly at the
> front end.
> I eventually got it fixed well enough to get home over the pass with the
> various back-up parts I carry ..
> took more than one try , but I got it finally. ..
> and ..
> the system worked just like it should ..
> it told me that temp was normal, but coolant level was low.
> It never got over 55 % on the gauge ...didn't hurt anything ..
>
>
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