[Vwdiesel] Coolant disaster averted...

[Shawn Wright]

I've been way too busy to keep up with things here, but thought I'd share 
my latest series of dumb mechanicking which fortunately didn't end in 
disaster. I got the head back on after replacing the h/g and dealing with 
12mm bolts in the 11mm head, including one brand new defective bolt. Did 
the re-torque after 15 minutes of running or so. Took two 20 minute drives 
during the week, and thought all was well. Took off Sat morning for a day 
on the West Coast. The first long climb about 15 minutes from home, I 
noticed the temp gauge was at half, which is odd, since it rarely goes that 
high until the top of a long hill. It started climbing a bit faster, and cresting 
the hill, into 4th gear, it didn't go down. Let off the thottle, still climbing. 
Probably less a minute from 1/2 to 3/4 gauge, so I killed the engine, and 
pulled over. 

Good thing - the end hose on the head had blown off - at this point I 
realized I had probably forgotten to tighten the clamp, since it was a 
different size head than the rest. Fortunately, I had extra clamps and lots of 
water, so we were on our way in about 15 minutes, and the engine seems 
fine, drove the 3 hours return without a hitch. This is not the first time I've 
missed a clamp because I had the wrong size socket, and forgot to come 
back to it... A good reason to swap all your hose clamps to the same size, 
at least for me!

Shawn Wright
http://zuiko.sls.bc.ca/~swright
'85 Jetta D 
'88 Westy 2.1L, soon to be 1.6TD 5 speed
 (see progress at http://members.shaw.ca/vwdiesels)
'82 Diesel Westy