Date:         Thu, 14 Jul 94 15:27:59 PDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         David.Kao@eng.sun.com (David Kao)
Subject:      Re:Vanagon Temp Guage

Did someone post articles about temperature guage? I have an interesting thread
here for your reading joy.

Joel, did I tell you I have two vanagons? I think I did. Yes, 83 westfalia and
84 GL. The 84 has been a terrific one but not the 83 I think. BTW, I got the
83 from a long time friend who gave it up to me to go overseas for a job.

The 83 has been suffereing from a slow, very slow, warm up problem. In winter
it could still be warming up after driving 8 miles on highway on my way
to work. 

Anyway, I decided to replace the thermostat. I went to a VW dealer to get a 
stock thermostat so that hopefully it will never go wrong again. I had the 
thermostate replaced. OK. It then warmed up as fast as it should have been.
But, wait, the temp gauge needle went all the way up and passed the LED. 
Initially the needle would stablize slightly to the right of the LED. Once the
car was driven then it went higher. If the car was driven on the highway
then it would go even higher. Really scary.

I took the new thermostate back to the VW dealer. They were kinda suspecicious
about my ability to deal with such repair but gave me another one anyway. I 
put it on and tried it again. Same thing! I could not believe what was
happening.

I went to another dealer to buy another one. It was strange here. I got
it for $18. I knew it was supposed to be about $32. It wasn't an after market
part for sure. I put it on to the car and oddly enough that it was still the
same.

I just couldn't believe it. I decided to borrow the thermostate from my faithful
84. To make the job easier, I took the thermostate housing all together from
the 84 and replaced the wholething from the 83. Guess what? It worked. The
temperature stablized at slightly left to the LED. And it did not move even if
the car was driven to the highway. I had the new part on my 84 and, bingo, the
temp gauge went crazy too.

After carefully examined the thermostat housing, I could not see anything 
suspecicious. I determined that the new parts were all baaa....d (that's how
I diciplined my dog when he was bad). I don't know what I can do about it
any more. I still drive the 83 and watch the temp gauge goes over the LED and 
wonders if the engine would melt in any moment. It hasn't happen yet.

So what happened to the old thermostat? My buddy told me it was serviced by
a VW dealer a while ago when he compalined that the car seemed overheating.
Again, seemed overheating. The dealer drilled 2 little holes on the valve of 
the thermostat. Coolant then constantly went through the valve to keep the
engine cool. It really cooled it. It actually took more than 10 miles of 
driving to reach normal operating temperature.

So that's why my buddy gave it up to me. Of course I have been a few k bucks
poorer since then.

David