Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:42:22 -0700
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: One more cooling question!
In-Reply-To: <BAY152-ds97CBA044B1B055BFB64CCA0B40@phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
lol..
I was going say the same thing ! ....figure anyone 'should' be able to
change oil successfully ..
but you can't really count on that simple task being doneright, as lame
as that might sound.
I just got a van in..they paid almost $ 100 at a jiffy lube type place..
got 10W30 put in which I think is too thinfor a waterboxer at this
timeof the year on the West coast..
no big deal on that ( other than oil buzzer going off, but that might be
do to a sloppy rebuild and a hightlyclueless driver and no tach on an 86
Syncro Weekender, oddly )..
so 100 bucks for oil and filter
and maybe air filter....
and since they just had done yesterday and a 300 miles ago, it's
likelythe oil shop did not notice the alternator flopping around on a
broken mount ...which later turned into a flipped over belt and maybe
overheating.
heck .I know a guy who is ASE certified , honest, and I would not let
him change oil on a car of mine. My nickname for him is CrossThread ...
he calls me Professor.
about the coolant.,..
if you can get some concise directions off the intenet ..print those out
and have them study it.
most importantly ..to me .
no cooling system flush is really 'done' and for sure right until the
van has gone through a few warm up-cooldown cycles IMO.
You never get all the coolant out. 80 % at the most.
Most waterboxer vanagons use coolant slowly. Pretty normal actually.
On and 85 Westy with subaru engine yesterday ...I was putting a floor
jack under the front ..
caught a whiff of coolant smell..very faint..
Could not see anyleak at the bleed valve or anywhere else...but 'that
smell' has to mean there is some coolant escaping, even if only 1drop
per hour.
They use coolant slowly.
it should say on by the gas cap ..
CHECK COOLANT LEVEL AT LICENSE PLATE BOTTLE WHEN FUELING THIS VAN.
just like VW added an oil level check instruction to the gas cap door of
early Rabbits ..
know for using oil past valve seals.
I have seen this a thousand times..
used to see it in Honda's in California ..
no one checks the coolant ..the overflow bottle gets lower and lower ..
the coolant gets old and yucky ..
then it's below the rad cap at the top of the radiator ...barely
covering the fins..
then one day ...nice hot day, heavy traffic, big hill ..
blown head gasket.
Have seen that many many times ....you could bet money that it will
happen, since people are not smart enough, or ambitios enough to keep
their vital fluids full. Duh !
I often say that a lot ..
Keep the Vital Fluids Full.
many people think 'fluid' means liquids only ..it means gases too, like
air pressure ..
and in diagnostics ..
'it's a blockage or leakage of electrons or fluids' ....it also means,
vaccum, vaccum leaks, exhaust and any other gaseous fluid used to make
the thing run right.
Extra below here...
if this interests anyone ..
this is just SO TYPICAL ..guy arrives from SyncroFest ....don't
remember why he stopped by ..
oh right ..it had cut out some on him, hechanged spark plugs ...helped some.
In one minute with zero tools other than eyeballs and fingers, I find
his idle switch is not making contact.
and probably hasn't in a few years.
We fixthat. Then I find the Idle Valve is not humming ..not doing
anything. That turns out to be the control unit behind the tail lightis
dead. We fix that.
Then I check his 02 Sensor output ...zip, nada.
His 02 sensor has been in the cat so long ....and is so rusted, it could
not come out without ruining the rusty-anyway cat.
Sowe left that for now. ..
but imagine ..
how much fuel he's wasted driving it the last whatever miles..
and ..
this stuff is not hard to identify and fix. It's child's play even .
and it idled before ..
but after these tweaks it idled like a dream , better than it has in a
long time.
And some shops will charge $ 250 for a 'tune up' andnever even check or
catch these 3 glaringly obvious faults, obvious to people who care and
know what they are going.
The poor vans..
for one thing...they hang in there amazingly well considering the
non-care they get and bad work done to them commonly. .. and the vans
and systems are whatever they are, and not that hard to deal with
often.. *it's the people involved that is the tricky
part............the people driving them and the people working on them.*
That's the real weak link about vanagons and most cars ...it's not the
cars that are the problem ..it's the people involved. .vk weak Stay sane
! scott t s*.......ylvednvo& turbovans S Sta it's ver they are ...
On 4/22/2013 6:45 PM, Dennis Haynes wrote:
> The auto shop thing could be a bad idea. There is not much difference between a drain and fill and drain flush and fill as afar as skill is concerned. The Vanagon cooling system has to be properly filled and bled and more than one engine has been destroyed by unknowing folks with the best of intentions. Even completely draining the system is a challenge. I myself don’t do "flushes" as there is no easy way to properly dispose of all that contaminated water.
>
> Of the most importance though is that you experienced a loss of coolant. This has to be fixed. If you lost enough coolant to activate the low coolant warning you lost about a 1/2 gallon. You have to find out where it leaked out or since it happened while driving there is the possibility it got forced out. You may have bad pressure cap or the cooling fan didn’t work when needed or fear of all fears you have combustion gases getting into the cooling system. In any event you need to find out what went wrong and have it corrected. So why was that radiator replaced? Maybe there was a problem back then that still isn’t corrected. You need to find someone that knows how to troubleshoot this stuff before you need to by an engine.
>
> Dennis
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of PB
> Sent: Monday, April 22, 2013 1:00 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: One more cooling question!
>
> OK! Back home, all is well, drove 46 miles perfectly fine. The radiator was new in 2007, only 3,600 miles driven since then! Yesterday I added distilled water to top off the tank. I'm sure that some routine preventative radiator service is needed.
>
> QUESTION: Do I need to *FLUSH* the radiator or just empty and refill it?
> I will need an oil change, but think I can get that done at work by the high school's auto shop. I'm not sure about trusting them with a flush.
> I'm confident they could handle a drain and refill.
>
> Patti
> 90 Westy Automatic
> ******************
>
