Date:         Sun, 12 Apr 1998 21:23:24 EDT
Reply-To:     Sean Bartnik <sbart7kb@WWW.MWC.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Sean Bartnik <sbart7kb@WWW.MWC.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Head Leak ?
Comments: To: The Martins <nitram@TBCNET.COM>
Comments: cc: vanagon@vanagon.com
In-Reply-To:  <199804130032.TAA07167@tbc1.tbcnet.com>; from "The Martins" at
              Apr 12, 98 7:28 pm

>
> My 85 1.9 Vanagon has 122,000 miles on her.  The P.O. did the heads himself
> (reseal only, I think) less than 20,000 miles ago.  a minute after start I
> get so much condensation spitting out of the tail pipe, it will actually
> wet your hand.  Is my head leaking ?  What stage of severity is this ?
> About how long can I wait to fix it ?


Don't get paranoid now!!  :-)
Water vapor is a normal product of gasoline combustion.  You will find
that on a cold engine, especially if it's a rainy or humid and cold day,
when the engine is started, soon you will see a cloud of water
vapor/steam coming from the exhaust pipe.  This is completely normal and
you will notice that every other car out there does it too.  This,
however, should stop once the exhaust warms up.  If you have huge
billowy steam clouds on a warm/hot engine, then I'd worry.  Otherwise I
would chalk this up to normal water vapor production.


--
Sean Bartnik
Fredericksburg, Virginia
1981 Volkswagen Vanagon L Westfalia
1974 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia convertible
http://www.type2.com/bartnik/myvan.htm
http://www.mwc.edu/~sbart7kb/vwbooks.htm