Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2015 04:20:00 +0000
Reply-To: eve Appleton <appleton_eve@YAHOO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: eve Appleton <appleton_eve@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: Dodged a bullet -- blowed the oil filter right off
In-Reply-To: <5681CD46.1020409@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Would someone please write an instructional book. Forget the bentley, obviously meant for the elitely mechanic minded... One which tells us to shift oil weights in the winter. 3 hrs waiting for a flatbed today on 167. Was on my way to work which is why i got the westy to begin with. $300 poorer (work loss), I'm hearing for the first time to lighten my oil weight in winter? GDit! What good is a maintenance budget if info like this slips thru the cracks?
Granted: turns out my exhaust pipe bracket let loose n whacked my oil filter. Huge white plume of smoke, work loss, a freeze to the bones 3 hr tow wait, n another 3 hrs more at mechanic (where i do considerable amt of the work), I'm left with uncertainty about the state of my rings or valves. !##%!@€€**#!
Is there an older lonely gent out there who's mechanically literate n open to union based on vanagon love? I'm seriously considering pimping myself. I just can't quit my van but need a preventative relationship, which nurtures reliability for my love of work. It's the idiot guide or prostitution. Given the latter comes with possibly restrictive consequences, would someone please !!!! write the damn idiot manual.
In seriously frustrated joy, tongue in cheek, though not really.... eve
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 4:01 PM, Rocket J Squirrel<camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM> wrote: Okay, so it's my fault, but I think I lucked out.
As temperatures drop down the freezing, and below, I change my engine
oil to 10-40, a thinner grade. But this winter I got lazy. I admit it, I
got lazy.
Well, one cold morning last week I started the van and trundled down the
street to go downtown, and was about a 1/2 mile from home when I noticed
that the idiot light for the oil pressure was lit. And the aftermarket
oil pressure gauge I installed a few years ago was at zero. They don't
share the same sender or anything so I knew it was serious.
I pulled off the main road and got out and looked behind the van and
sure enough, a trail of oil behind me leading up to a small puddle under
the engine.
Triple-A flatbedded the van to Gary's Ole Volks Home here in Bend, and
after an hour he called me and said that the oil filter had plain blowed
off.
So here's what happened: at these low temperatures, I reckon that the
thicker summer oil was as thick as pine sap -- maybe amber -- resulting
in very high oil pressure.
The oil filter was not the stock one that I use. I installed a
tencentlife oil cooler kit a few years ago, and it uses a banjo fitting
that goes between the filter and the engine for oil send and receive
(thermostat in there, too). The stock filter is too long to fit and he
recommends a Bosch 3300, which I have been using.
But the last time I replaced the filter, when I switched from winter to
summer oil, the auto parts store was out of stock on the Bosch, and they
offered the Wix. I never heard of Wix, but the guy said it was a good
brand, so hey.
Well, the mechanic was consternated by the shorter filter, said it was
the wrong one, and that the threads looked like pipe threads. I picked
up a new Bosch on my way over and took at look at the Wix, comparing it
to the Bosch, and the threads in the Wix looked pretty poor.
So I think I lucked out here. That high oil pressure was gonna blow out
something, I'm just glad that it was a $6 oil filter. Otherwise, $75 for
the work, nothing (other than subscription to Triple-A) for the tow. It
could have been a lot worse.
Engine sounds fine, I hope no damage was done.
And what's the lesson, kids? Don't skip maintenance. And distrust Wix
filters.
--
Jack "Rocket j Squirrel" Elliott
1984 Westfalia, auto trans,
Bend, Ore.
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