Vanagon EuroVan
Previous messageNext messagePrevious in topicNext in topicPrevious by same authorNext by same authorPrevious page (December 2015, week 2)Back to main VANAGON pageJoin or leave VANAGON (or change settings)ReplyPost a new messageSearchProportional fontNon-proportional font
Date:         Fri, 11 Dec 2015 09:10:40 -0800
Reply-To:     Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Sick of overheating....Friday question and comment....
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

I've been reading all the helpful suggestions on the overheating diesel vanagon.... I've just been through something quite similar with my S.O.s Subaru forester 2.5 liter....same weird almost instant overheating (sometimes, sometimes not at all) Been to a couple of shops with it now and the mechanics have been stumped.....Internet wisdom says "headgasket"....so what are you Subie conversion guys and gals doing for motors now? I am being quoted around $3k for a rebuilt motor or a headgasket repair on that car....someone bartered it to her in the first place, so we're thinking just junk the thing and get another..What say you Subigon peeps?

On the overheating diesel.....I have an inline gas motor in my van (same castings as a diesel motor), mounted with diesel coolant hoses and bars.....Mine has some hose routing that is.....'devious'? anyhow, there are some very arcane bends and junctions in mine that make no sense to me...though I have been successful in driving it around for some years now, I never bothered to try to follow the coolant path....it worked when I got it, so I kept it the same..

When I first began with this van, I changed all the fluids and of course, got a big air bubble in the cooling system...and being a Vanagon Rookie....I went...."Hey, it can't be overheating, the heater is blowing cold",,,,and then I read up on bleeding the systems...I could easily and clearly see a stream of bubbles coming out of a small hose that spliced into the larger hose that returns coolant to the pressure tank...."De Nile" syndrome caused me to say...."Good, all that trapped air is coming out of the cooling system"....but of course, it was a now-leaking headgasket....I drove it over 3 thousand miles, Portland, Oregon to Mexico.... with the leaking headgasket. I got really good at topping up my radiator at gas stations on that trip.....I could go along with my eye on the temp gauge and my hand near the heater outlets...When the heater stopped heating, I would stop for gas, knowing my coolant level was getting low....I made what I guess is a Libby Bong....I took a length of steel brake line and mated it to a small funnel with an "S-bend" that allowed me to insert it into the radiator bleed screw hole on the top of the radiator....It became second nature: Get out the big flat screwdriver, release the grill, take the 13mm wrench and finesse off the bleed bolt. Grab my gallon of coolant and pour it in till the bleed overflowed....close up, take out the gas hose and proceed for another hundred or two miles....

When the trip was done, I pulled the head and lapped it at home on my bench, to true up the head surface, puttin another head gasket in. All has been good now for another 50k miles or so.....The strange thing on Vanagon cooling systems is that they aren't very consistent, sometimes.... Another tip....do NOT rule out the possibility of coincidence.....I've encountered two completely un-related problems on a single vehicle....it does happen. I once did an alignment on my 928 Porsche racecar and it wouldn't start after.....We scratched our heads and racked our brains trying to figure out what we'd done to cause that....when it was actually a failed engine control module that just coincidentially failed while we had it up on the rack....

anyhow, Subie motor source for cheap? anyone? happy friday..


Back to: Top of message | Previous page | Main VANAGON page

Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!


Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com


The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.

Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.