Date:         20 Jun 1995 14:41:20 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Harvey Chao" <Harvey_Chao@smtp.svl.trw.com>
Subject:      Re - Electrical Leak proble

This is my first attempt to post to the group a large - hope I got it right.

For any of you diesel owners -  I had a similar problem to Drew -  my wife
parked the van with a 2 week old new "Die Hard" battery and came back 20
minutes later to a dead battery.  Had no time to futz with it so I came and
got her and went back the next A.M.  First thing I noticed was no dome lights,
no lights, no radio -  NADA.  Metered the battery and it was zero!!  Jumped it
and took it back to Sears.  They checked things and said I had a short.  So I
took it home and disconnected the battery and thought about it as I prepared
to successively reconnect the various leads to the + terminal.  It occurred to
me that to drain a new battery below the point of being able to crank a warm
engine in 20 minutes is a BIG short, and what could draw that much amps
without burning something up??  Answer, Glow Plugs!!  Turned out that the
contacts inside the glow plug relay had arced closed.  It is possible to
open/remove the cover to that relay, pop the contacts open, burnish and
reinstall.  Bought a new relay as soon as I could.  In the mean time, I have
added an indicator light at the dashboard that is hot wire to the glow plug
bus, and other wire  to ground.  Anytime there is power on the glowplug bus,
the lamp is on.  This is important to know - besides possibly running down
your battery.  I saw what was left of a head and piston where the owner had
run down the highway unknowing that  his glow plugs were stuck "on"  It
destroyed both the head and the one of the pistons.

On the topic of rebuilding clutch slave cyliders.  I can't remember the exact
year, but parts from a bug wheel brake cylinder have been used to rebuild the
clutch slave cylinder.  I would caution that the one time in my personal
experience that this was done, it only lasted about a year or so.  Be sure to
use lock washers when you reinstall the slave cylinder least it come loose and
strand you without a clutch (as my wife complained to me as she abandoned it
at the curb, fortunately only 3 blocks from home, but boy was she pi_ _ _ _! 
- I somehow managed to get it into 1st or 2nd gear, CAREFULLY checked traffic
and hit the starter, pulling onto the road as I did so and then headed home in
that gear.)

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