Date:         Fri, 10 May 1996 13:11:44 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         jwakefield@4dmg.net (john wakefield)
Subject:      Gaser water cooled story (long)

Bradley L Spear wrote:
  "I did have to use a Napa filter when I was at Fort McCoy, WI once and 
that came with a warning about bursting."

  I was surprised and asked for elaboration, to which he responded:

  "In the box with the filter was a piece of paper, like an instruction
sheet, that said if the NAPA oil filter was use used on a Volkswagen or
a Dodge Omni/Plymouth /Horizon with a Volkswagen engine that the filter
could burst at start up.  It said something about VW engines developing
abnormally high pressure.  It's been a while since I had that filter.  
The only reason I got it was that no other FLAPS in Sparta or Tomah, WI 
had a filter that would fit.  I changed filters as soon as I could."

  This interesting note reminds me of an adventure I had in what now 
seems like another life.  I had one of those Plymouth Horizons with the 
Wolkswagen 1.7 liter water cooled motors.  It was clean and ran well, 
probably aided by the fact that it had been a Bell Telephone company car 
assigned to the head of vehicle maintenance, and this fact influenced my 
selection of it from the rows of apparently identical white Horizons 
being sold at auction that day.
  After about a year of ownership, my female love had gone on an extended 
vacation to the southwest in her much larger Reliant loaded with girl 
friend visiting from Germany and a car full of supplies.  Somewhere on a 
desolute narrow service road in the western side of the Rocky Mountains, 
they punctured their motor's oil pan and kept running until they junked 
the motor.
  That evening I received a tearful call at our home in the midwest, 
something like 1200 miles on the other side of the Rockies.  The 
dealership to which she'd had it towed using her travel card had said the 
Mitsubishi motor rebuild would run over $2000 and was pushing hard for 
her to trade it in, giving her a pittance for her clean Reliant, saddling 
her with a payment stream she could ill afford, and making a quick buck 
on this helpless woman with the funny accent.  I said to sit tight for a 
few hours while I consider this and got their motel room phone number.
  I decided to go there and pull them back, but despite trying to call-in 
favors on short notice, I couldn't borrow anything more suitable than my 
1.7 liter VW powered stick shift Omni.  I called U-haul to rent an auto 
tow dolley, since the front wheel drive Reliant automatic trans couldn't 
tolerate being towed with "all its feet on the ground."  They asked what 
tow vehicle I contemplated using, and, on looking up Horizon, laughed at 
my request, saying "there's no way pal."  Later, just to secure it, I 
called them back and rented it for a week under the guise that I'd 
secured a 3/4 ton Ford diesel pickup for this big job.  That allowed me 
to prepay and sign the rental paperwork, but leave the dolley there 
"until my friend gets home from work with his truck and we can switch 
vehicles," a bald-faced lie I felt compelled to tell.
  That evening, having removed the aluminum joke of a rear bumper with 
which the Horizon was fitted and substituted a length of suitably strong 
steel channel with a hitch welded in place, I picked up the tow dolly 
from the now closed rental business.  The next morning I was rested and 
drove I-80 west for a 2600 mile hot summer adventure.
  My air conditioning was working well and once up to speed, except for 
the dolly noise and jerking, all seemed to be going well the first day.  
Then, thinking about the VW's intolerance for being over heated, I 
stopped into a K-Mart along the interstate and bought a heat gauge.  I 
was astonished to find that it was about 100 degrees that afternoon when 
I got out of my cooled car.  Later, in another town, I took another short 
break to buy some plumbing fittings with which I installed the heat gauge 
into the top radiator line.  I noticed that the electric radiator fan 
would cycle on only when I slowed for in-town speeds.  This motivated me 
to wire in a manual switch by which I could by-pass the thermostaticly 
controled switch and run it full time if I should desire.  Arriving at 
the girls motel, I took my first out-of-car rest.
  The next morning, we backed the dolly to the Reliant's front and I used 
a "come-a-long" to pull the front wheels into the dolly's securing wheel 
wells and played with chains, wires and spun my prayer wheel.  It felt 
like I'd attached to the Queen Mary!  Like older "portable" TVs that are 
portable only in the sense that they can be moved, this was obviously a 
lot of weight.  Two adults up front, one in the rear seat, tools, mounds 
of what ever they thought might be useful on a long vacation in the 
Reliant on the heavy dolly!  Well, the temperature was only about 85 
degrees early in the morning and I was as prepared as I was going to be.
  Acceleration was train like.  Yes, it was slow but in time, it got up 
to 60 mph at heavy throttle settings and was pulling 4th gear.  Thanks 
VW.  Good thing I packed my prayer wheel :).
  It didn't take too long before the girls understood that my refusal to 
run the air conditioning was born of necessity.  As the first hills 
became a factor and the outside heat approached 100, I turned the heater 
on high and we opened all windows, so the alternator was pulling both the 
radiatior fan and the heater fan.
  Yes I had to use low gear occasionally on open highway mountain roads, 
but never did it fail.  I drove by the heat gauge, using 220 as the 
maximum continuous duty safe operating temperature.  On the second day, 
the EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) went into failure and fowled the 
carb.  I found and used a dealership which tank rebuilt the carb and 
replaced the EGR for just $94, an exceptionally fair deal I thought.  
They were astonished at the load I was pulling and said if they hadn't 
seen it, they wouldn't have believed it.  While the carb was being 
rebuilt, the manager told me about how much better the national service 
numbers had been about heat induced motor failures in Omnis and Horizons 
since they dropped the VW motor in favor of another design.  He likened 
what I was doing to building a house using a hammer that had a Christmas 
tree bulb as the hammer head.  This really inspired my confidence while 
lifting my spirits.
  The rest of the trip was just "another day at the beach."  Speed 
limited by my willingness to go no faster than 220 degrees F produced 
steady progress back to our University home.  
  Now, while I no longer have my notes, I did compute an average MPG of 
right around 18, used only one quart of my Mobil 1 synthetic, and drove 
both legs of the trip straight through without motor failure except for 
the EGR incident, which only took the carb due to the simultaneous heat 
load, in my opinion.
  So one of these little water cooled motors in excellent shape, running 
synthetic oil, and not allowed to overheat for one instant, will do a 
hell of a job.  Just thought some of you might like going along for this 
trip.

	Respectfully submitted,
	John Wakefield