[Vwdiesel] Reading Gauges and the VW veins...Coolant or water?

[Nate Wall]

Here's my odd story from a few years back: 1985 Jetts
TD w/ A/C, two-speed cooling fan, w/ only the "Hi"
speed getting power thru the relay. For some dumb
reason I decided to replace the cooling fan relay
since I figured it was cheap and getting old. Worked
fine though. Replaced it w/ a "Cheap" "Made in China"
one. Soon after that I smelled what I thought was
motor windings burning, coming out of the fan vents.
Caused me to R & R the blower fan TWICE, and not find
a problem. Then the car began overheating sitting
traffic,(Low-speed cooling fan inoperable). Went right
up to the "Red" mark a few times. When I began to
drive, the temp dropped. Then a couple days later on a
scorching day outside, I cranked on the A/C and pulled
out of a parking lot, stopped at a light. When the
light turned green, I stepped on the accelerator and
all of a sudden the vent plug blew out of the bottom
of the receiver/drier, dumping all the R-12. What a
huge white cloud! Long story short: The "Made in
China" relay was bad and drew so much current, it
melted the fuse block, and the 30 A fuse never blew!
Just completely toasted its socket. (That's what I was
smelling, plastic smoke being sucked into the vents),
caused the cooling fan to be non-operational, and that
caused the overheating and the vent plug to melt and
release the R-12. Lesson learned! A new VW relay and a
re-wiring of the fan circuit and a fuse next to the
fan solved the problem, and  along w/ a $350 charge,
evac, new receiver/drier repair bill. The A/C still
works great to this day!

--Nate
--- Mark Shepherd <markonee1 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> [ Converted text/html to text/plain ]
> I wouldnt trust the gauges much beyond the fact that
> they show a change from
> the usual :-(
> My usual is on the 12 o clock LED When the head
> gasket blew a year or so ago
> the gauge went up to about 1.30pm and never reached
> the  red! As the TDs are
> designed to reach a high operating temp quickly/and
> absorb a high increase of
> power; the higher boiling point of 'coolant' is
> fairly crucial...This is
> something mentioned to me by a chap in a scrap yard
> as I watched the only '86
> TD Quantum they had; being crushed...
> I wished I'd got there the day before :-(
>
> 'H' get it to the "1 notch before red" and thenturn
> off; step outside and
> listen/ feel for extreme heat?...Rip out an EGT
> gauge from one of your
> aircraft and put it in the manifold/downpipe :-)
>
> Quantum-Mark(the Miser)UK     "If I can bend it or
> stick it together I
> will..."
>
>
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