TheSamba.com :: View topic - Where is your vanagon leaking?..and...Is my oil cooler bad??

Thu May 26, 2005 4:37 am

Hi
i have a 81 westie, and it supposedly has a rebuilt motor. Mine leaks oil on the drivers side at the valve cover. It usually leaves a 3-5 inch oil spot in the driveway, each time i shut him off. Does this mean that a seal is bad on this side of the engine? I am still trying to figure out why he runs so hot. I just got the engine seal i ordered, and i plan to put it in very soon. How do i know if the oil cooler is faulty? thanks, connie.

Thu May 26, 2005 5:29 am

Could be the valve cover gasket, can you actually see it leak out from there? If not, it's probably the pushrod tube seals. They are easy enough to replace if necessary. Oil cooler is difficult to check with it still being installed. If you have access to an air compressor, you can blow out any gunk that might be stuck in the fins. Oil temp gauge is your best bet to see if the oil is getting too hot.
Make sure your engine seal is good all around the engine with no gaps. Blow out any leaves that might be stuck/packed behind the rear bumper. Are your cooling flaps working correctly? (cylinder temp gauge is a good thing to have on air-cooled engines as well) The thermostat is a common failure. When it does go bad, it should take the engine a long time to warm up as the flaps should go to full cooling. However, that is not always the case. Underneath the engine, remove the cooling tin under the passenger side of the engine (cyl 1 and 2). I think 3 screws hold it on. Once that is off, you should see the thermostat on the bracket with a cable running from it (accordion/bellows looking thing.) With the engine cold, it should look noticeably compressed... there should be some distance between the end of it and the bracket it sits in. As the engine warms, the thermostat expands and loosens tension on the cable that is connected to the cooling flap rod. Make sure that cable is guided properly on the roller and that the roller is free to turn. Follow that cable up into the engine compartment. If you look at the top of the engine, you should see the cable coming out of the engine tin and connect to the cooling flap rod. Now here is where it gets tricky.... I've seen many vans overheat because the cooling flap was adjusted with a BAD thermostat. If the thermostat you just looked at is not compressed when the engine is cold and the flap is then adjusted per the factory or Bentley manual, you are forcing the flaps closed and they will not open!

If your thermostat is bad or cable is broken: Make sure the flaps are in the full open position. See the part the cable connects to on the rod? You should see a spring wrapped around the rod there. That spring will hold the flaps to full open if the thermostat or cable fails. You should be able to push down on the tang that the cable attaches to and rotate the rod. When you let go, the rod should snap back quickly with tension. If not, check the spring. If it seems all floppy, it probably slipped. If so, take the long end of the spring and rotate it back under the boss on the cooling fan housing. You will have to replace the thermostat and/or cable. These are hard to find now unfortunately. New ones are being made, but need to be modified to work properly.

If your thermostat/cable is good: Get a 7mm wrench and a pair of vise grips. Use the vise grips to hold the nut that is securing the cable. Use the 7mm wrench to loosen the bolt (no need to remove it). Once loose, pull the cable out. Check how the rod works as detailed above. If the rod snaps back ok, reattach the cable. You can use the vise grips holding the nut to push down on the rod so it closes the cooling flaps. Pull the cable back through and tighten the nut. This is easier if you have someone to give you and hand, but the vise grips should give you good leverage to do this.

After this is all done/checked, you should be good to go (don’t forget to put the cooling tin back on underneath!). I do recommend getting those gauges as it will tell you for sure if your engine is getting too hot. One other thing… after checking all this, if you want some visual reference that the cooling system is working, put a small paint dab on the left end of the rod and another on the cooling tin (right where the rod disappears into). When the engine warms up, those paint dabs should no longer line up as the rod has rotated to open the cooling flaps. Hope this helps….

Thu May 26, 2005 6:28 am

Nice post there, vwkess. I like the paint on the rod trick (although I find "white out" easier to use).

Also you can find some nice pictures of the parts at the bus boys site in the "air cooling" section.

Thu May 26, 2005 6:29 am

Valve cover gaskets are easy, just like a bay, my engine is a rebuild with 30,000 miles on it, I've changed both cover gaskets and tube seals on one side. Just buy the cork gaskets from bus depot.
It's going to run hot till you get a seal, once I understood how it worked it was easy to fix the stuff that was making it run hot. I fixed everything but when the outside temp got above 90 here and I had to drive on the Highway, my oil temps where still higher than I liked so I got an external oil cooler.

Thu May 26, 2005 7:11 am

These may be Helpful in understanding how the cooling works.
Colin/Amskeptic wrote and illistrated them:
Click on them to view in a seperate browser, then you can enlarge them and read them.

Thu May 26, 2005 3:20 pm

Randy in Maine wrote: Nice post there, vwkess. I like the paint on the rod trick (although I find "white out" easier to use).

Also you can find some nice pictures of the parts at the bus boys site in the "air cooling" section.

Thanks! No tool box is complete without white out :)

mightyart wrote: These may be Helpful in understanding how the cooling works.
Colin/Amskeptic wrote and illistrated them:
Click on them to view in a seperate browser, then you can enlarge them and read them.

Wow, very nice illustrations, wish I was that talented! Always helpful to have pictures to go along with a "how it works" article.