Club 80-90 Forums

I have recently updated vans. I now have a 1984, 1.9l, petrol, watercooled Westie (left hooker)

The engine was recently removed and refitted due to failed crank seal (in case it is relevant). The (brand new) engine was fitted by VW about 4 years ago and has only done 3000 miles.

Today I noticed a trickling sound when I pushed down on the accelerator. Like the sound of water running along a pipe. It is coming from low down near the dash/gear stick. There are no leaks of any kind.

Then the van started to stall when idling. Could only keep it going if I gave it a little bit of gas (and got the tricking noise again).

The only other thing to mention is a recently replaced some of the hoses to the petrol breather tank on the offside.

Oh and not long after I got the van I had a problem of flickering oil pressure light when the van got hot and was idling. But that only happened on one day and not since.

Any ideas?

You might want to mention the puddle of coolant that came out (noticed it in your blog)...

Low down near the dash gearstick are the pipes to the heater matrix
Trickling could be air in the heater circuit but unless you are overheatingvthen I can't see that would be related to loss of power
Are you sure the system is full of coolant and the temp guage works?
Have you just switched the heater on ?


Just possible they are unrelated

Ahh, good point. I automatically assumed it could be linked to the loss of power.

Ok, on the coolant front, he did lose a bit of coolant recently but I have since tightened the pipes and have not lost any more fluid. The coolant bottle in on the minimum level as I have not had a chance to top it up. I will top up the fluid and see what happens (thank you)

On the loss of power. I drove for 30 minutes today and it did not do it. 2 hours later I drove for 10 minutes and it did not do it. 15 minutes after than I drove for 15 minutes and it the problem repeatedly occurred.

Then I turned off the engine for 10 minutes, started it again and it was fine.

Never done it before......

Coolant bottle in the engine bay with the darlek cap should be brim full
Topup bottle behind nubmerplate is less important but should be to the min

If you lost coolant you will have air in the system for a while it will come out by driving but heater needs to be ful on to drive it out of that circuit

As for the stalling could be many things
start by checking for air leaks in all the vac hoses that come from the carb
Assuming its a dg with pierburg check you have a good electrical connection to the bypass air cut off valve this is the cylinder central on the carb as you view from the rear should have 12v when running. When it next happens stop the engine remove the wire and replace it should click




I'm sure others will have be along with more to check soon