Date:         Thu, 10 Jun 2004 21:33:09 -0700
Reply-To:     Shawn Wright <swright@ZUIKO.SLS.BC.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Shawn Wright <swright@ZUIKO.SLS.BC.CA>
Subject:      Re: It was a great ride . . .
In-Reply-To:  <40C926B7.83A132CC@adelphia.net>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Ouch! What an awful feeling.
Did the oil pressure light come on before this happened? Did you happen to check the
oil level before or after this happened? Possibly they forgot to fill it with oil... although
the oil pressure warning buzzer should have come on, if it was working.

On 10 Jun 2004 at 23:27, Marc Perdue <marcperdue@ADELPHIA.NET> wrote:

> I took my '87 Westfalia into the dealer today to get it inspected, oil changed,
> tires rotated and balanced, and cooling system bled.  The last was because there
> was some pressure buildup in the pressure tank and the coolant level was
> dropping below the level of the sensor, causing the red blinky light to come on.
>  No overheating, mind you.  Well, the van passed the inspection with flying
> colors and I picked it up and headed down the highway for home.  I had gotten
> about two miles when I started hearing this tink, tink, tink sound.  I was just
> starting to wonder what it could be when there was a big boom and smoke/steam
> started pouring out the rear of the van and into the van as well!  I was right
> at an exit, so I pulled it off the highway and coasted into a parking lot at the
> bottom.  I was looking around trying to find what was leaking and where when I
> noticed that something looked different.  The bottom end of a piston crank was
> sticking up through the top of the engine!!  :^(
>
> To make a long and truly sad story a bit shorter, I had the van towed back to
> the dealer.  I will talk to them tomorrow and see what arrangements will be made
> to remedy this, but I'm not hopeful.  I keep going through this in my head and I
> can't get over the feeling that the dealer screwed something up.  If they didn't
> bleed it correctly, could it blow up without overheating?
>
> Here's a little run-down on my van:  I bought it just over 4 years ago, with
> 113,000 miles on it.  The automatic transmission was shot, but the engine had
> been rebuilt at 111,000 miles.  It now has almost 148,000 miles on it.  I've
> tried to do a good job of maintaining it and am surprised that this happened
> with only 37,000 miles on the rebuilt engine.
>
> This is really depressing, but I wanted to share my tale of woe with you all
> because this list was so helpful to me when I first got my van and I guess
> misery loves company.
>
> Take care all,
> Marc Perdue, '87 Westfalia, "Westy"
>

--
Shawn Wright
http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright
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