Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:52:14 -0800
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: coolant leak story
In-Reply-To: <CAHTkEuJ3KOi2K5=V5eqP4t=aiFaJt_3TL2uRbBxN32e0SsGdng@mail.gmail.com>
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Don,
I wasn't 'doubting' thelow coolant level warning.
Not at all.
I just shared in my post that the two readings made sense together..
low coolant, and 'ok temp.'
And I even finished with the words 'the system worked just like it should.'
so how do ya figgger I doubted the low coolant indication ??????
re that loose nut thing .....I've found a loosenut on the back of the
insinstrument cluster for a dodgey temp gauge once I think..
maybe twice..but not commonly.
yes, an oil temp, ( and pressure too ) gauge is a handy thing.
It just gives you another indication to help confirm the validity of
other indications.
Like a pilot would in an aircraft.
Maybe ordinary car drivers don't even grok such a concept ..
you take the available information in front of you ...put it all
together ...and analyze what is going on.
That's fundamentalto safe aircraft operation. SOP even.
I don't think there is anyone to teach ordinary drivers such things
much anyway.
I have driven ....betcha ....at least 200,000 miles using and looking at
stock vanagon water temp gauges,on numerous vanagons.
It's not hard for a smart person to tell when they are working right.
I consider the stock gauge to be quite good. I like them quite well.
ya know ..if asmart person takes the time to really understand the
warning lights and gauge systems on a water-cooled vanagon ..they are
quite good.
The one gauge I would always add, if I'm going to add any gauges, is an
oil pressure gauge,
as it's agood general indication of bearing oil clearance ....and thus
health of the bottom end of the engine ..
and it gives more info than the warning light ..whether the single
warning light system or the enhanced DOPS system, ( 86 and later.)
After that I'd do an oil temp gauge.
'the trick' on coolant leaks of course is to catch it early.
It's not like an engine is going to just destroyed in a few minutes of
marginal amounts of coolant in the system.
There are manytricks of course ...
for sure I'd be coasting engine off ( manual trans )as much as I could ...
If warm air comes out of the heaters ..I run those.
Heck ...
if one 'just had too' ...one can fake a water cooled car for miles by
drivingin an on/off mode..
accelerate to about 40 ..shut off ..
coast down to 20 mph ....pop the clutch .aaccelerate back to forty ..
etc.....just don't do it where it's hazardous..
Now and then I see people driving vanagons with noway to see out the
back window ( very dumb in my opinion, plus dangerous ) ..
it's real handy if you notice a steam cloud back there.
About the most risky mode is high speed at night ..
as one might not see any smoke or steam out the back window ...
anyway ...
the stock temp indications can have idiosyncrasiesnow and then ..but
nothing insurmountable.
It's funny what people will read into things.
I shared about a perfectly successful indication and emergency repair ..
and someone sees that as me doubting the system.
Just can't win sometimes !! lol.
sdf
On 11/28/2012 5:38 PM, Don Hanson wrote:
> 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 ..
>>
>>
