Date:         Sat, 28 Dec 1996 23:18:16 -0800
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         natasha!mholser@Adobe.COM
Subject:      Re: Coolant manifold leak

The plastic-now-metal part is an elbow that attaches to the right head at
the rear.  Plastic version sealed with "o" ring real nicely.  The metal
version seals with a crappy gasket.  The plastic one warps if the engine
overheats, but seems to be ok otherwise.  Besides, nobody has ever had
a cooling system problem on a waterboxer, so overheating is just not ever
a problem, is it?  One of mine is warped badly, but I worked it a bit
and it is fine for the time being.  I was not on the list when mine failed,
otherwise I'd have known about the metal replacement.  The list is really
great, although sometimes I long for the old days of USENET newsgroups --
nowadays I never even read news, there's too much.  Thank God for mail
sorting filters, otherwise the Vanagon list would be too much as well.

Why isn't this on rec.autos.vw.vanagon or something?  Not that I'd read it...

malcolm

> The manifold is not the plastic piece that's been discussed on the list
> recently. And it's not available in metal as far as I know. It is plastic on
> my syncro (87 Westy). But it is a failure-prone part of the cooling system,
> as you have learned the hard way.
> 
> At 06:52 PM 12/28/96 -0600, Todd Francis wrote:
> >Hi all,
> >         Well I finally crawled under the Westy to find out which water
> >hose broke that ruined my drive home from a Christmas Eve party,and left
> >me stranded on I5. It turned out to be a split in the plastic manifold
> >that 4 hoses attach to just ahead of number 1 cylinder. I have read many
> >times on the list about a plastic part in the coolant system that fails
> >and that VW made a metal replacement for. Is this the part that everyone
> >has had trouble with. If it is then something someone said sometime back
> >is wrong. I remember it being said that VW changed this part to metal on
> >the Syncros. Mine is a early Syncro and the part is still plastic. I
> >wish it would have been metal. If this is not the part that has been
> >discussed on the list, exactly wich part is it?
> >
> >
> 
>