Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 23:04:19 +0000
Reply-To: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Erratic temp LED and gauge needle
In-Reply-To: <1498615754.3031649.1571174163820@mail.yahoo.com>
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Did you check the coolant level? What you descibe is indicative of low coolant or a system that is air bound. When you start the cold engine the pump s pulling the coolant out of the bottle activating the low coolant warning. As the engine warms the coolant expansion may satisfy the sensor.
The later vans used a different low coolant controller. They pulse the gauge to activate the light without raising the needle so you can distinguish low coolant or overheating.
Dennis
Sent from my Windows 10 device
From: Richard Koerner<mailto:rjkinpb@SBCGLOBAL.NET>
Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2019 5:18 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM<mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Subject: Erratic temp LED and gauge needle
I'm on a roadtrip with my 85 Vanagon, 280K miles on chassis, 60K miles on a Subie EJ22 Kennedy conversion. Everything fine....until I turned the key at a campground on the south Oregon coastline yesterday. With key turned to "on", normal flashing of temperature LED for 3 seconds. With key turned to "start", motor fired up just fine; but immediately the LED started flashing, and within 15 seconds the gauge needle was pegged at max. Shut down motor. Tried again.....same thing. Went back to motor; tried unplugging and replugging the 2-wire connector on top of blue cap for the coolant reservoir. Tried again....same. Now, this is with a cold motor (ambient temperature around 50 F).
I presumed it was an electrical issue of some kind; not a plumbing issue. So left the campround, with temp LED flashing away. After about 5 miles, the temp gauge needle started dropping; after about more 5 minutes right about where needle crossed LED, the LED stopped flashing. The needle continued dropping....to about halfway between the LED and the MIN position. And pretty much stayed there the rest of the day.
This morning, in chilly campground, same scenario. But this time, even though the LED was flashing, the needle did not rise to max; instead, it rose to between LED and MIN position; LED stopped flashing after about 5 minutes. Once warmed up, the gauge needle seems to work normally....slightly rising in stop and go traffic, slightly lowering when cruising on highway down a grade for instance.
A little baffled. Do you think it's something back in the motor, or perhaps something in the dash instrument cluster? (I cross-posted this email to the subaravanagon group on Yahoo.)
Rich
San Diego
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