Club 80-90 Forums

Thanks for those who helped during yesterday's panic.

I have let the engine dry out and mixed up some coolant.
I began to pour this into the header in order to have a full system for the bun fight tomorrow at the garage.
However, as I pour the coolant into the header it is leaking quickly from what appears to be an inlet joint just above the rear offside exhaust outlet.

Have crawled around under the van with the digital camera and the following pics show the offending leak - the location is identified by the purple arrow.

It appears that there is a new circlip around the pipe and the manifold has been sealed with some kind of putty/liquid gasket - should this have a proper gasket?

Am I correct in deducing that when the system overheated it blew at the weakest point - which appears to be the poor joint as arrowed.

If I can get this sorted I may yet be able to take Jane for her birthday bash to Anglesey next weekend - help appreciated and may prevent two children needlessly having to be brought up in care. Thanks, Paul.

Those links were all to "cock", Sherlock Mann unravels the mythery..

Anyway, if you take those connections off, clean them up and look at them, should be fairly obvious how to stop them leaking. Some of those pipes get blocked.

Paul,
Could be a metal pipe with a flange that should have an 'O' ring under it.
Perhaps the garage did not have a new ring and have attempted to seal with some sort of gasket goo.
Difficult to see from piccies.
Mike

Hi Mike,

from what I can see you may be correct.
There is definately point at which two surfaces need to create a seal and this is where the liquid gasket seems to have been used.
The flange is held on by Allen bolts.

If the lack of warmth to the radiator is an airlock then a botch would present an obvious weakspot - perhaps just as well.

Will speak to garage now I know what they have done and ask them to rectify. GSF is only in Sheffield and I had already brought a couple of exhaust gaskets for them.

Cheers, P.

If it's the small metal flange on no. 2 cylinder that is connected by a small guage flexi pipe to the top water distributor pipe (either plastic or metal, depends on year) (1986 0n) then this has an o ring N 902 781 01 81p plus vat from vw 26x3mm. I ulso use the earlier paper gasket and blue gasket sealant myself as often corrosion will pit the surfaces so the o ring alone won't do the job. The metal pipe also has a restriction inside it of about 5mm so is easily blocked. Easy to check if it is remove the rubber pipe if water comes out freely then it's not blocked, but if it's only weeping then you've a blockage.
This should not have been disturbed during the coolant change, it is not the place to do a draindown, and if they've tried to flush through it then it will block up.

Hi all,

George the Kettle is now back with the shamefaced garage who have assured me that they will have him sorted by the end of today.

They also assured me that they had used a machine that cannot leave airlocks, and this is why they had not run the bus up to temperature, checked the temp gauge or radiator!

They also fessed up to having botched the joint into the head

They were a little surprised when presented with my new found encyclopaedic knowledge of the cooling system and specifically the O ring with accompanying part number - thanks Beaker & Mocki

I will post the outcome this evening, but once again many thanks to all those who profferred advice.

Another garage 're-educated' - probably thought that bodge would see its useful life out and never be dsicovered- how wrong could they be!

These comedians are rebuilding a Syncro (yep its them T'Onion) so god alone knows what that will be like when they have finished with it!

This only gets better!!

Went to see George yesterday.

The leak was from the plastic inlet manifold which was liberally covered in liquid gasket.

However, the problem was pointed out as a small crack in the inner inlet tube.

Not being one to accept things at face value anymore I took a closer look. When they were fitting the new exhaust they had to heat up the nuts to remove the old one. The trained (untrained!!) chimp doing the work had melted the plastic inlet manifold so it would not sit flat on the workbench but rocked about 30 deg from the vertical which is why water and steam were pouring out.

VW advised to swap the plastic for a metal one and supplied same - is this ok? They insisted after I questioned repeatedy and loudly that it would be ok, including an older chap who seemed to know his T25s.

Now all the people at the circus need to do is clear all of airlocks - I have asked them to run it up to temp and check the rad heats up and the needle moves on the water temp.

Is there anything else I should check? Hoping to celebrate Janes last year as a thirtysomething on Anglesey this weekend at abrill little campsite at Rhosneigr so any words of wisdon appreciated.

Ta, Paul.

YES - get them to do it again, and again.....as per Mocki's instructions.

We followed them as best we could, had a little drive, and bled again. As Mocki says, it always needs one more time than you think it should!

Have a lovely weekend!

(take the spanner that fits the rad bleed screw with you, and some water...its easy enough to fine a hill, up a kerb etc etc if you want to check there is no air left at the rad....Don't know how "right" it is, but we let air out after a short drive by parking up a hill, releasing the air from the rad by undoing the bleed screw til water came out. Topped up expansion tank a little, and made sure levels were right when it was cold!)

Emma

Thanks Emma we will try.

The kettle impressions have stopped.
The temp gauge had been declared dead by the garage and is not working - the red flashing light is.
When I parked at home I could hear bubbling from the header tank.


Does the gauge use a different sender from the light?
Is the bubbling normal? My Diseasel Pug does not do this, so am I still in for long evenings doing a "Mocki" as my kids now call it?

Any pointers appreciated.

May go back to Aircooled this water stuff is really complicated!!

the red light self tests on start up, and is also the low water level warning, as well as over temp, but it takes temp warning from same sender......
what year is it, or rather, is it early water sys( two rad pipes running round the lhs of engine bay) or late ( all plastic bits and one large metal pipe on lhs of engine?)

Hi Steve,

ok its a 1987 Californian, imported Westy 2.1 petrol engine code MV.

If I understand you correctly, the red light will flash if it begins to overheat even though the needle may not move?

I will have a good ferkle around the front rad in the daylight and see if I can work out how many pipes I have - it also has aircon which the garage advised required a secondary radiator in front of the proper one - now this I find hard to believe, but if someone here tells me otherwise I will accept this.

Harry - yep but causing me loads of headaches along with a number of governments around the equator and Thames Water!!