Date: Fri, 13 Jan 1995 09:19:24 -0500
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: "Frank E. Terhaar-Yonkers" <fty@vislab.epa.gov>
Subject: Re: Vanagon Disaster Prevention
This is a known problem (it's even talked about in Bentley). There
is a new O-ring that isn't supposed to break in the cold.
- Frank
>This is for those of you who are "fortunate" enough to own a Vanagon with
>an oil cooler. CHECK IT NOW ! Before it's too late !
>The other day it was -35 out, yes I said -35 and that's centigrade for you
>Americans, my female partner went out, started the van to warm it up for her
>drive to work. After having some breakfast and getting dressed she went out
>and next thing I hear is, FRANK ! something's wrong with the van !. Well, I
>go to look and see a large puddle of oil on the snow and it's pissing
>out from somewhere underneath like there is no tomorrow. SHUT IT OFF, I
>YELL ! So..I go get dressed and open the garage and start it up and back it
>in and it's making like the crankshaft wants to come out and the racket is
>deafening or is it my imagination thinking of how expensive a new motor is !
>So....I get it in the garage and fill it with oil and start it to see where
>the leak is... ya hoo ! Found it, behind the oil filter, so what's this
>gizmo behind the oil filter anyway ? Well, it turns out to be THE OIL
>COOLER !, I didn't know I had an oil cooler ! So I go about taking the
>oil filter off and finding the nut that holds the oil cooler on and find
>out that it's loose. I decide to tighten it before looking more as it seems
>complicated to remove it. Well, it still leaked so I had to remove the
>cooler to find the BROKEN O-ring behind. Whether or not the -35 temp. had
>anything to do with this is not sure. All I know is that the van got started
>at -35 without the aid of the blockheater which was plugged in but the
>DAMN GROUND FAULT DETECTOR detected ground and NO POWER.....THANKS A LOT !
>After rumaging around in my junk I found an O-ring to fit and got the
>engine going but was making a loud clacking sound, sure sounded like a rod
>bearing to me, BUT after some investigation with a srewdriver as a sound
>probe the noise was detected near the top end of the cylinder under the
>alternator. Taking off the valve cover while the engine was running and
>prying on the rocker arms a bit the noise went away when I did the second
>rocker in. COLLAPSED lifter ! YEA !. Not a rod bearing ! Well, the
>moral of this story is, check your oil cooler and change that O-ring if
>it's suspect. Mine was cooked - hard - brittle - so the high oil pressure
>at - 35 startup blew it, most probable scenario. I guess I was lucky that
>the noise was just a collapsed lifter, it COULD have been worse !
>
>Cheers,
>
>Frank, how long can a Vanagon engine run without oil ?
>
>
>--
> * Frank Condelli * Kinburn, Ontario, Canada *
> * ad793@Freenet.carleton.ca *
>
-------------------------------------------------
Frank Terhaar-Yonkers fty@vislab.epa.gov
Martin Marietta Technical Services/U.S. EPA
P.O. Box 14365, Mail Stop 4201-2, RTP, NC 27709
voice - (919)541-2297 fax - (919)541-3967
PGP public key on request - or on your favorite PGP server
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