The "great-life-lesson-on-limits-and-not-cheapening-out" Syncro

[4Gears4Tires]

Thank you Samba for this tip on supporting cargo loads, it may have been Dan or Sodo. Either way I felt a lot safer about the dirt bike on the back of the van with the soft straps around the tail gate hinge. The rack/bike did not sway or rock. It was very very steady the entire trip, even with this cheap $90 rack. I drove down to a meet up with a friend in Pisgah NF for a weekend of dirt biking.

First thing I did when I found a free dispersed site was park the van and get the dirt bike out!

Vanagons are such wonderful base camps. I was starting to get annoyed at all the little things I need to fix on the Syncro and this weekend made me appreciate the van all over again. We had a dispersed site on the forest service road to the trailhead, so we were able to ride straight out of the camp site into the trails. It was awesome to ride for a few hours, come back for lunch and a nap, and then go back out to ride some more.

BRRAAAPPPPPP

Headed out. It felt so awesome to see the dirt bike on the back of the van. Honestly, I don't even know why that felt so cool but it did.

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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[jimf909]

Sad face because he’s thinking “I wish I had a van and didn’t have to sleep in a tent”.

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- Jim

[4Gears4Tires]

He actually said something close to those lines.
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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[dobryan]

[4Gears4Tires]

Back up in Maryland I wanted to put the Syncro on the lift to take a look at a few things. The steering wheel was pretty heavy sideways when it drove straight and the tires were dancing around a bit. But, the rally e30 was on the lift with a blown head gasket, too much boost! Once that was taken care of, I got the Syncro on there.

The nut was completely loose, it was on by just a few threads. Add that to my "check torque when changing oil" routine now. I wonder if the bushing cracked and it changed the tension on the nut? It should be hard up against the metal sleeve though.

My speedometer/odometer stopped working a bit back. I read about the gears sliding out of place, so I wanted to see if I could spin the gears after pushing the little gears back in. This worked to spin the odometer, but unfortunately a dremel spins backwards to how it should. So while I confirmed my odometer now works (it went from 0 to 997), the speedo didn't move. The cable fits perfectly though. Maybe I can chuck it in a drill.

Then I wanted to check my drivetrain alignment again. Last I did this it was off, but over time I suspected maybe it was a me issue. Anyway, it sure doesn't seem off now. This has to be about as as well aligned as reasonably expected.

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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[dobryan]

That radius rod bushing has a metal sleeve inside it. The nuts on either side get tightened to fully compress the dished washers upon the metal sleeve. The bushing does not actually hold the torque for the nuts.
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Dave O
'87 Westy w/ 2010 Subaru EJ25 (Vanaru) and Peloquin TBD

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." Robert Louis Stevenson

MD>Canada>AK>WA>OR>CA>AZ>UT>WY>SD
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=620646

Building a bus for travel in Europe (euroBus)
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=695371

The Western Syncro build
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=746794

[4Gears4Tires]

Yep. The bushing failing was the only thing I could think of, but yeah, that shouldn't have affected it. Not sure why it came loose.
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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[4Gears4Tires]

I'm finally tired of tossing my phone in random places and armed with a 3D printer, I knew I could find a better solution.

I liked this phone holder
https://makerworld.com/en/models/1018445-cloud-phone-holder#profileId-999248
and then I found this switch blank
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3651980
and I knew I found a solution.

I adapted the two with a mortise and tenon and then printed them off. Of course I had made them mathematically perfect and in reality I had to take a dremel and sand down the tenon.

The switch blank / mortise side pops through

And then I popped in the phone holder with the tenon on the back

There's a little rubber band, so the gravity action closing the arms will open up when the phone is picked up

I forgot to grab an old phone so enjoy this picture with hand sanitizer

Overall, pretty happy with how it turned out.
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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[4Gears4Tires]

Printing it out in PLA did not work, the heat warped it. I reprinted it in PETG. It worked well then, but I think it either needs to move towards the center of the van by 2" or up by 4" as the steering wheel is covering too much of it when I slouch.

On Thursday I took the van out to the forest to run around on the dirt bike. I filled up with gas near the the forest and the van refused to turn back on. Slow crank to nothing. I looked under the rear seat for my jumper cables but did not find them and the jump pack was not enough to get the van running. Luckily a guy walked over with jumper cables and I jumped the van battery from the house batteries. I got into the forest and then made sure I could park where I could roll and jump start the van. I unloaded the dirt bike and got a few hours of fun in.

Downed tree means the end of the trail for me here

However the battery pack jumped the van no problem this time. So I think I need to replace the battery chassis cables, there seems to be some heat related resistance issues. Once jumped, the van did not run very well at low speeds, it lurched and jumped. I saw a Walmart 9 miles away, and while I hate Walmart and boycott them whenever possible, this time was not possible. $80 later I had a T5 in the van and it ran well.

I swapped the dirt bike for gravel bikes and went off to the GW National Forest in WV for a few days of camping.

I saw a Bald Eagle overlooking the river. Would have been cooler if I got the van in this shot.

The van ran well all weekend, no problems. I think the battery issue is related to the powered subwoofer I installed. Not an issue with the subwoofer itself, but I think the cheap head unit doesn't power it down. I noticed that I could hear the speaker going boomboobmobom for several seconds after I shut the van down. But I figured whatever, just a few seconds. Not whatever at all, there went my $330 AGM battery. It's not holding a charge well anymore.

Another issue I had been fighting for awhile but now uncovered the source of was my overheating in traffic. The last time I got stuck on the highway during roadwork I was hanging out of my window and trying to hear the fan. I verified that indeed my fan was not turning on and the engine would start to overheat. FWIW, I can feel the low and high speed fan vibrations in the floor. I made sure to note this in the future. I removed the grill and used a small jumper on the fan thermistor plug and the engine ran totally fine even up steep passes at slow speeds. I am thinking about reusing the rear bench fan control (which does nothing because it's removed) as a switch for the front fan. Maybe the thermistor died, but I do like the idea of manually turning the fan on when I want.
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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[4Gears4Tires]

I continue to chase the issue where the van is fine at highway speeds but quickly starts to overheat at a standstill. My next idea I'm chasing down is that the thermostat is broken.

I replaced the radiator yesterday with a Showa unit and it looks like a really nice radiator. I like the fin design, it has tubes with very fine vertical fins, much like a lot of AC condensers. I should have taken a picture before it was installed.

I also replaced my original heater core valve and swapped the bowden cable from my vanistan valve to the new heater core valve. Although I left the vanistan valve in place because I like the air bleed bypass.

Today I'll try to replace the thermostat and then bleed the coolant again and we'll see how it goes. The reason I think it may be the thermostat is that once I was done replacing the radiator (which is a giant PITA) thinking it may be clogged (it wasn't) the symptoms were exactly the same. I get 181F and climbing at the reverse coolant manifold and 100F (just radiant) at the return pipe from the radiator. And the radiator was 85F all over. No flow.

I also bridged the heater core lines at the rear heater core location like everyone here recommended I do, although I called Van Cafe about this and they said they have never done that and it's the first they've heard about it. I added a restriction into the line using a 3/8 to hex adapter that lost it's lock pin. Outer diameter was the same as the ID of the hose, which much bigger than the ID of the T fitting. So it won't go anywhere. I didn't take pics of all this because I was covered in coolant and annoyed.

I also discovered that my expansion tank nipple was bleeding coolant out when I popped the cap. So no doubt it was sucking in air when cooling down and contributing to my issues here. I tightened the hose clamp and I noticed late last night it has sucked in all the coolant from the reservoir, so at least that's working.
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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[4Gears4Tires]

I replaced the thermostat on the Syncro, and bled the coolant again. I put this in boiling water and verified it opens before I installed it. I want to 100% sure of everything I am doing here.

I decided to remove the little brass toggle from the thermostat so there is always some flow. I am trying really hard to make sure there is proper flow to the radiator. I took it for a drive, again, doesn't overheat while I am moving. But when I stop, even with the radiator fan jumped to max, it starts to overheat. I checked the radiator pipes in and out, 130F in and 110F out. This was after driving around for 20 minutes.

When I was bleeding the coolant with a tower, it was not overheating, but the red light was blinking on. How is that possible? It was not low, in fact, it was 8" higher than full.

I am at an absolute loss. I have no idea. My next idea is that the fins of the water pump are damaged and I am not getting the flow through the radiator that I should be getting. I am considering plumbing in an electric water pump right before radiator using my existing off road spot light wiring. That would be easy.
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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[skemems]

How did you plumb your coolant lines? Specifically do you have some sort of coolant bypass?
There are several threads on this depending if your using a reverse manifold or perimeter pipe. This bypass is needed for proper thermostat operation.
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87 VW Westfalia - EJ25
86 VW Westfalia - EJ22
85 VW Westfalia - WBX 2.1 project

[?Waldo?]

[4Gears4Tires]

I plumbed it exactly as Van Cafe / RMW specifies in their diagram. I am using a reversed coolant manifold and I added two bypasses.
1. removed coolant toggle valve on the thermostat itself so it's always an open hole
2. connected the rear heater line Ts to each other (I have no rear heater) with a restriction in the line so there is always some flow

The reverse coolant manifold goes forward to radiator in. Radiator out goes to the bottom of the thermostat housing/ water pump. I checked this for at least hour tracing every single line to make sure I don't have anything coolant direction fighting itself.
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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[4Gears4Tires]

[Christopher Schimke]

I'm just jumping in here, so forgive me if I'm covering ground that has already been discussed.

When I was chasing overheating issues with my 1.8T, I discovered two unexpected things that contributed to the issue.

1) I discovered that numerous aftermarket thermostats were faulty right out of the box. An OE AUDI thermostat solved that particular issue.

2) I found that the impeller on my water pump had a crack in it where it was pressed onto the shaft that is driven by the pulley. The impeller was still somewhat tight on the shaft, but loose enough that it could be forced to slip on the shaft with enough fluid pressure/force. The pump would still move coolant, but not at a high enough rate to satisfy the cooling needs. At speed, the coolant was moving fast enough and was being chilled enough through the radiator to keep the temps in check, but at idle, the coolant was moving slower, and the airflow through the rad was less, thus causing it to overheat.

I have no idea if any of this applies to your situation, but I figured it doesn't hurt to toss it out there, just in case.
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"Sometimes you have to build a box to think outside of." - Bruce (not Springsteen)

*Custom wheel hardware for Audi/VW, Porsche and Mercedes wheels - Urethane Suspension Bushings*
T3Technique.com or contact me at [email protected]

[4Gears4Tires]

Thanks for chiming in, it was your thread I was reading on the aux electric water pump. I am leaning hard to #2 being my issue. If it's not the issue, then.. I have no idea what else could be the problem. Some issue with the flow of the WP. I am just really not looking forward to everything that has to come apart to do that.

I have a JDM EJ25 sitting in the garage already, it's been sitting there a few months. Honestly if I have to swap the WP, I might as well just swap the motor. The current one leaks at the rear main and a few other spots.

Edit: Just took the van around for a 20 minute drive and then idled for 5 minutes with the fan wiring jumped to high. Temp went up half a needle, but it was steady there. So maybe it was the thermostat. Or maybe it was that bypass loop everyone here mentioned. I guess I won't mess with it, but I'll certainly keep an eye on it and report any changes.
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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition

[skemems]

[4Gears4Tires]

It'll be awhile before I get back to the Syncro to do more long term confirmation, but yeah, it certainly seems like the Subaru swap needs a bypass there if the rear heatercore is removed.
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'87 Syncro Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition
'85 Westy Sciuridae Domus Edition