Darrel,

Welcome to an unfortunately non-exclusive club. I have been chasing this
gremlin for over 6 months now, have made some progress and recommend reading
everything in the archives. I am pretty sure that is is a symptom that does
not have a single definitive cause.

I have not completely fixed the problem, but seem to have made progress, I can
now get it to turn off  by not starting my van until after the test cycle time
is up??? Very strange, I know, but here is what I have done, so far.

            1. Installed new sensor in reservoir. - I do not think this was
necessary in my case, but is the most logical part to fail, it is cheap, and
easy to do. It did not change anything.

            2. Checked  and cleaned all electrical grounds. - This is all too
often the source of mysterious electrical problems. I am about half way done
on this, it is not easy or quick, but important to lots of things, so it
should be done at appropriate intervals to high mileage vans. It may have
helped this and has helped other things that I did  not know were problems.

            3. Purged coolant and replaced with fresh. I use Dexcool, but I do
not think this matters.  I am beginning to think that the actual mix (should
be 50-50) is much more important that one might think. My mix may have been
slightly too strong before the change, and ended up being a little weak now.
(I am slowly removing mix and adding concentrate and checking concentration
after running for a while and this has been the only thing that I have done
that is in the right time frame to make the light now go out when I wait the 6
seconds before starting, other than it is cooler now than it was in July.)

        4. I had at least one suggestion from the list to clean the ribbon
connector in the instrument cluster with electronic cleaner, I have not had a
chance to try this yet, but it reportedly helps. This sort of fits with
cleaning the grounds.

I think this is an interesting example of a system that is probably more
complex than it needs to be, but I know a lot of engineers who thrive on that
kind of  phenomena.

Good luck, I hope this helps. I thank all those on the list that offered help
to me on this issue earlier this year.

Jim

--
Jim Henry
Durham, NC

84 GSL-SE
85 GSL-SE (parts car)
84 Vanagon Westfalia camper
95 Oldsmobile Aurora
87 RX7 na

jch@vnet.net

dawn wrote:

> i have  the   red  led  flashing  at the    water  temp  gauge
> i have  checked  alot of stuff  and the  wire connections where i  thought
> the  system got  info  from unplugged and  checked  for corrosions
> if anyone out there  could help i would thank you
> Darrel Combs
> 1988  gl vanagon
> Don't just surf the Web, take an eTour!
> http://www.etour.com/default.asp?associd=aff942