Date:         Sat, 26 Jan 2013 20:07:30 -0500
Reply-To:     Walter Houle <whoule@ECSCONTROLS.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Walter Houle <whoule@ECSCONTROLS.COM>
Subject:      Coolant Overpressurization / Head Gasket Leak

The morning after the 300 mile drive home from BBB I noticed that the
coolant overfolw tank was full and overflowing a few drips. The expansion
tank was also 100% full. I opened the pressure cap a little bit at a time
and a lot of coolant pushed out - this on a stone cold engine that was
sitting for 12 hours. It looks like I have an internal head gasket leak.
The strange part was that the van ran strong all the way home and didn't
show any obvious signs of overheating. We stopped and checked it twice
along the way, no drips, no smell, and no excess heat. The temp gauge was
over the right edge of LED and it behaved normally, up a tad on the
climbs, and down a tad on the descents, just like always. I did a
compression test today and it was 170-170-140-150. Its been low on 3 & 4
like that for a while, last test was 6 months ago, but this is the first
time I've had coolant issues.  I will try a hydrocarbon sniff of the
coolant and then a leakdown test to confirm. I've read a lot in the
archives, and its looking more and more like its a compression leak, and
it looks like it is only occuring under load. The heads are old and have
never been off, original VW factory rebuild, 15 years and 75K miles ago.
Yes, this is way overdue and I should have taken care of this earlier.

I am assumming new heads are in order, and I'm hoping that is going to be
it. What about the rest of the engine? If it was pushing coolant away from
the cylinders, it was doing it for a long period of time. WHat else should
I be looking at?

Thanks,
Walter
1985 Vanagon 1.9 in San Diego