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Date:         Thu, 14 Jul 2016 05:15:59 +0000
Reply-To:     Poppie Jagersand <poppie.jagersand@YAHOO.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Poppie Jagersand <poppie.jagersand@YAHOO.CA>
Subject:      Inspected radiator in place with endoscope Was: Unusual Vanagon D
              radiator sidetank baffle failure
In-Reply-To:  <134033077.619502.1468172260603.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

I bought the USB endoscope I mentioned in the previous post. $27 on Amazon. (Cheaper on ebay, but would take a month to ship from China) The endoscope / borescope was quite handy, letting me look inside the radiator through the fan switch thermostat and in/outlets.

No crud or scaling was to be seen in the radiator, but as I had expected from the tests I did before (see previous post) coolant was passing directly between the hot and cold sides. Turns out the baffle separating the hot and cold half in the passenger side tank was broken. My guess is that the interior soldering of the baffle was weakened when the side tank was soldered on from the outside. Then many cycles of flexing the poorly attached brass baffle finally broke a piece off. I wonder if I can plug this hole w/o taking the radiator out. E.g. with epoxy putty or high temp silicone.

Pictures on:https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~jag/Pictures/VanagonDRad/

Martin (and '82 Vanagon Westy 1.9 TD in Canada, '85 Westy in Europe)

On Sunday, July 10, 2016 11:37 AM, Poppie Jagersand <poppie.jagersand@yahoo.ca> wrote:

 Has anyone had the baffle in the radiator side tank that separates the upper and lower half fail / come out of place? The Vanagon D has a soldered brass radiator. When the sidetanks are soldered on, only the edges are soldered and checked for leaks. The baffle would have to be soldered into the tank before putting it on the core. The side of the baffle that contacts the core is inside and can't be reached by the torch, so I guess that leaves a potentially weak spot. There might also be a chance that the soldering of the baffle is weakened when the tank is heated during soldering of the sides to the core.

Anyone has pictures of the inside of Vanagon D side tanks?

I'm planning to order one of those $20 USB bore-scopes / endoscopes on Amazon. I can poke that up the coolant inlet and inspect the baffle. http://www.ebay.com/bhp/usb-endoscope https://www.amazon.ca/TurnRaise-Waterproof-Endoscope-Inspection-Smartphone/dp/B01ERGH6HW/ref=sr_1_17?rps=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1468171875&sr=8-17-spons&keywords=usb+endoscope&psc=1

Detailed description:

I drained the coolant, and unscrewed the thermo switches for the radiator fan so I could peek into the radiator. The inside of the radiator on the drivers side looked fine. No scaling or dirt to be seen either in the core passages or tank. This didn't explain why the van would overheat on uphills. (Note I had already changed thermostat and water pump)

I refilled coolant and started the van. As it was warming up I monitored the temp of the various parts with an IR thermometer. While warming up the coolant out pipe and whole passenger side tank would heat up faster than the radiator core and drivers side tank. This is a bit odd.

After running on high idle eventually both tanks and core got to 90C. So obviously some coolant goes through the core.

I then jumped the low speed on the radiator fan. Now temps were: Lower passenger side tank (coolant in from head): 90C Radiator core and drivers side tank: 20C Top passenger side tank and coolant out to water pump: 60C (Note coolant circulates from bottom to top in 82 Vanagon D)

This suggests that only 40% of the coolant actually circulates through the core. The rest, 60% bypasses the core and flows directly from the inlet to outlet. (By law of energy preservation 0.4*20C+0.6*90C = 62C)

Hence it looks like the baffle that should separate the upper and lower halves of the passenger side tank has come out of place and allows coolant to flow through. I'll get a closer look once I get the borescope.

My options seems to be: 1. Take the radiator to a radiator place and have them fix it. My guess is that it will cost some hundreds of dollars, so might as well replace core even if mine is in pretty good shape.

2. Remove the end tank myself with a propane torch, fix the baffle, and soldering it back on. Not the easiest job, but with some basic soldering skills I hope I can do it. There are videos on YouTube.

3. Find a parts van and pull the newer style radiator, mounts, fan shroud etc, then install that. I put a WTB ad for the parts on Kijiji Edmonton, but no answers yet. (Pictures of what I need are in the ad) http://www.kijiji.ca/v-view-details.html?requestSource=b&adId=1180823055

Anyone knows who has a parts van locally in Alberta, or with parts to mail?

Thanks, Martin (and '82 Vanagon Westy 1.9 TD in Canada, '85 Westy in Europe)


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