Date:         Wed, 8 Jan 1997 09:49:44 -0800
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Don Kane <dkane@mail.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject:      Re: Nervous about heads

At 2:12 PM -0800 1/7/97, Lionel Tun wrote:
>I keep hearing about the 'heads' going on water-cooled 1.9 and 2.1 engines.
>Is it inevitable?
>
>My 84 GL has done 183,000 miles but a recon engine was put in 75,000 miles
>ago in 1991 (probably due to the head thing:-).
>Does this head thing re-occur regularly or is a once only fix?
>
>Is there any preventative maintenance to stop one getting nervous and
>always looking at the temp gauge?
>
>Lionel Tun
>lionel@ark.prestel.co.uk

	Don't depend on the coolant level in the recovery tank (the one
behind the license plate) to tell you the whole story. The '84 I just
bought with a blown engine had coolant in the recovery tank, but the main
tank was empty, the engine was dry. I've seen the caps in the expansion
tank fail so that they don't force coolant back to the recovery tank, but
this is the first one I've seen that doesn't pull it from the recovery tank
into the expansion tank. So check out the main tank on a regular basis.
	My '87 has 190,000 miles on the original engine now. It has had the
blue autobahn coolant since I've owned it, and the PO used it. I don't know
about the original owner, but the records show he took it to VW for service
the first 50k miles, so most likely it has always had the blue stuff.
Regular yearly coolant changes too. Lasat year I developed some seepage
from one head and used xxxxxxx. There's has been no more leaks. I think
190k miles on the original engine is the exception, but I'm pretty sure
there are others out there with even more. Regular coolant changes
certainly helped.

Don Kane
dkane@mail.arc.nasa.gov
'87 GL
'85 GL
'85 GL Parts van
'84 Westy
'67 Standard Bus