Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 09:46:47 -0500
Reply-To: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: My Vanagon's blinking coolant light problem vs other
peoples'---it all blends together
In-Reply-To: <548C67D7.10204@cox.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
As part of your fix test or replace the pressure cap and make sure the coolant system is properly bled. Then also test for combustion gasses getting into the cooling system. Your symptoms are indicative of the coolant getting pushed out of the bottle at extended high speed. As you come down in speed the water pump no longer keeps the coolant pushed into the system and the bottle refills due to the vapor pressure on the other side of the system.
Dennis
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of mark drillock
Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2014 11:23 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: My Vanagon's blinking coolant light problem vs other peoples'---it all blends together
Just about any alarm system you can mention will have more nuisance indications than real ones. The smoke alarms in my house go off on occasion for various reasons even though my house has never been on fire. I doubt it ever will be on fire. I'm still keeping them.
The coolant level warning system is pretty simple. While some vans exhibit symptoms that their owners find to be mysterious most of these can be readily solved with a little guidance and perseverance.
If you get an alarm while driving the key thing is to see it and respond appropriately. That usually mean stopping immediately and investigating.
Of course you may find nothing really wrong. Either way, deal with it.
This just happened to me over this past holiday. We did 1700 miles in a recently acquired 87 Westy. For various reasons we took the new van even though I never had a chance to put even 100 total miles on it first. I had checked the different systems over and fixed a few things so off we went hoping for the best. On the 5th day out we were on a stretch of I-5 where there were few exits or services. The coolant led suddenly started blinking. The temp needle stayed ok so I nervously drove to an exit that looked to have a place I could check things out. I expected to find major leaking coolant but nope, all seemed dry with no drips on the ground where we stopped. The main tank was completely full. What I did see was a tiny weep at the sensor, pooled up around its connector on top of the tank. I closed up the engine lid and we drove on. The flashing was gone but an hour or so later it came back. Again I checked things, still no real problem seen. This blinking happened a couple times a day after that, always cleared when the key was turned off and then stayed away sometimes for hours of driving at a time. I no longer felt the need to stop and check but the flashing bothered me. Finally I reached into the fuse/relay panel and pulled the coolant level relay. This stopped the occurrences of false coolant level alarms but kept the other important function of the warning led in case of a high temperature alarm.
Since this was a shakedown cruise we kept a list of things to fix or modify before another trip. Obviously the coolant level sensor is at the top of the list.
Mark
Don Hanson wrote:
> OK, I agree that the low coolant lights on Vanagons are good things,
> like many have pointed out...they can save your engine... And we have
> these cited episodes where indeed these things seem to have done that.
> But nobody has bothered to post those episodes where the light comes
> on and cuts a trip short when only the warning system is having issues.....
> A warning system with little assurance of it being real, no good. I
> can cite plenty of episodes where my low coolant light simply fooled
> me and caused me problems that were just plain not there.
>
