vanagon overheating

[hihorn]

I am having a real problem with my diesel vanagon over heating. It seems to have trouble moving the hot coolent from the engine to the radiator for cooling. I have done all the bleeding proceedures. It runs fine for a while, I shut it off, and when I come back to it, it overheats. I have an overide on the rad. fan. when 1st. bled the low fan comes on as normal. There is no coolent in the oil and no oil in the coolent. It just seems to have trouble moving from the back of the bus to the front rad. I also replaced the water pump and thermostat. I have disasembled everything and using a garden hose forced water through everywhere, no blockage. This is my daley driver and any assistance would help. Thank you.

[hoyt]

How well does the heater work?? When the van is over heating does
the heater put out a lot of heat?? If the heater is working well
then I would say that the water pump is doing it job.

[hihorn]

The heater works fine! I am going to pull the thermostat out completely this morning and try bleeding it once again. BTW, the engine runs great, starts up right away and gets about 31 - 32 mpg. I had also put a new head gasket on the engine about 4 months ago. Had the head checked for warpage by a local VW shop. And yes I did re-torque the heads.

[hihorn]

I tried removing the thermostat today and it did no good. I tried bleeding the system and got lots of air but, no coolent. My girl friend walked around the back and said that the "new" coolent tank cap wasn't even holding pressure under gravity! (Front was up 17" and cap was tighned in the rear with no engine running) So later I'll get a ride to FLAPS and try another coolent tank cap.

[hihorn]

For those of you curious as to what ended up being the prolem with my vanagon. Turned out to be the coolent fill tank in the engine compartment. The sealing lip where the cap seals, wasn't sealing. It was worn away just enough to not hold ANY pressure. A t replacement tank off an 87' Syncro made a fine replacement and all is great!!!

[Josh]

Are you saying that your 1982 diesel van's coolant fill tank (not the little overflow tank) could be replaced directly by the tank from an '87 synchro? The tank with the screw-on radiator style cap?

Please confirm, because if this is the case, it could help out a great deal. A few months ago I checked all of north america for an '82 diesel tank, and after a week or so finally sourced the last used one anywhere!

-Josh

[hihorn]

Yeah! I don't have an overflow tank on my 82' Just the clear fill tank behind the battery. I did some very minor modification to the Syncro tank as far as hose sizes. The lower one fit like a glove and I used a home made step-down hose for the top. I am also using the plastic cap that screws on. I put about 600 miles on it since doing this modification and the engine runs nice and cool. I could fabricate a bracket to mount the tank but, gotta love those zip-ties. I'll post a picture of it on my web site if you would like to see.
www.stunttrumpet.com

[Josh]

WARNING!

Hey, I've got a potentially fatal concern for your engine; I'm sure your retrofit is probably fine, but just FYI...

My '82, before I had acquired it, had been overheated to the point of warping the head, cracking the expansion tank, etc. The mechanic correctly installed a new head, but when repairing the coolant system, he attempted to stick an '83 filler tank in place of the '82. He did some homemade hose adaptations, which probably looked fine when cold. However, down the road, things heated up and the hoses kinked, stopping coolant flow, and causing another overheat!

Be CERTAIN that your adapted hoses aren't imminently kinking, and it sounds like you're good to go!

Trumpet rules!

-Josh

[hihorn]

Thanks for the warning Josh. I (while wearing gloves) removed the home made adapter and was able slide the soften hose right on to the tank. I changed hose clamps to use the factory non-serated type and things look even better. I will continue to what it closely to be sure. I have installed an oil pressure, vacuum, volt meter, and oil temp. gauge set on my dash, to more closely monitor the under hood functions.