Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 08:31:05 -0800
Reply-To: YauMan Chan <YauMan@CCHEM.BERKELEY.EDU>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: YauMan Chan <YauMan@CCHEM.BERKELEY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Coolant Changing -Reply
Content-Type: text/plain
Ah.. I know exactly what you mean. When I first read the
Bentley manual, I was totally intimated. and in fact I didn't
change the coolant on my 87 GL for the first 6 years. To
make matters worst, a friend of my who bought her Vanagon
a few months after mine from the same dealer took hers in to
have the coolant change when it was 5 years old.. And 1000
miles later, the engine overheated and blew up.. I convinced
her that it cannot be a coincidence and that she should
make the dealer pay for a new engine. They went to court
over it and got the dealer to pay for most of the repair... so by
then I was totally paranoid about changing the coolant..until I
found this page on the web:
http://ruralinstitute.umt.edu/vwbus/faq.htm
It has a very good description of changing the coolant by
flushing the engine using one of those T-flush attachment.
Basically the technique will leave clean water inside the
engine water jacket and when the rest of the system is
refilled with 100% concentrate coolant, the mixture will be
about 50%. I have used this procedure since and am still on
my original engine with all original parts after 120K miles
(knock on wood!)
As for the part about lifting the nose up when refilling, I
understand that it is absolutely necessary. I find that driving
it up one of those repair ramps will lift the nose up by about
7inches. The procedure calls for 400mm which is about 8
inches. I now have a slightly sloping driveway..so I am ok
with my 7" ramp. When I had to do it on a flat parking lot, I
drive it up the ramp and then let most of the air out of the
rear tires and I get my nose more than 400mm higher than
the rear.. but what a pain pumping up the tires with a foot
pump!
Yau-Man Chan
87 GL
>>> David Bogle / Architecture <bogle@BWAY.NET>
08/26/98 11:27am >>>
I am one of the lucky ones as the Vanagon Official Factory
Repair Manual (Bentley) came with my '87, and before that
with my '72. There are 4 pages covering the draining and
filling of the cooling system. There _is_ more to it than my
previous swedish cars ('59 PV544 & '75 245DL.)
Has nobody put these fundamental details online?
--
David Bogle
'72 Campmobile 2.0L
'87 Vanagon GL Syncro Westfalia
