Well, the mechanic got better, found very little wrong except for one important thing - the head gaskets leak. Also #4 spark plug is seized up, but that's another problem. Back to the heads - he claims that a "leak down test" brought this up. I would presume that to conduct such a test you have to get the valves lined up nicely, yes? Then you measure the rate at which the pressure drops? Anyway, the current theory is that this problem simply caused the engine to work a *lot* harder to get anywhere, which is why it overheated. (And here I thought ALL air-cooled engines were this wimpy!) Current diagnosis is to pull the heads and see if they can be resurfaced. I hope so, given the prices I was quoted for replacement heads - $345 a piece I think it was! While he's got things out and apart, any suggestions for other preventive maintenance that would be good to have done? I was thinking about checking out the oil cooler, perhaps even adding a 2nd one. Other suggestions? -rick Rick Gordon Bainbridge Island, WA, USA ------------------------------------- finger for PGP public key fingerprint -------------------------------------
|
Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of
Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection
will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!
Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com
The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.
Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.