Hi, welcome...

One thing is to always put some sort of heading on your messages. Helps to
figure out if it lies in someones particular line of interest or expertise.

Second, pulling a water cooled is no harder than an aircooled. Messier by
far, but no harder. Drain the anitfreeze, disconnect everything according to
the manual, and the waterboxer slides out easy. I prefer it to removing and
replacing all the tin on an aircooled.

Third, don't do anything halfassed. You will wind up doing it again anyway.
Most of the time if you have compression leakage into the coolant, pay the
fiddler and sleep easy at night. That means pull the heads, have them
evaluated and reworked.

Fourth, nothing's terribly hard on a vanagon. I wish you the best of luck.

tim in san jose

>Hello,
>
>I'm new to the list and recently purchased a '91 Carat (3rd bus, first
>water-cooled) and I love it!
>I know about the potential head problems and I bought the van assuming it
>will need this addressed
>(why else would you sell one?) so I am already preparing for it, therefore
>a few questions:
>
>Does this "Bar's" leak fix stuff damage or cause deterioration to the
>engine or related parts?
>On a '91 would you have to replace the heads or just the head gaskets (from
>your experiences)?
>People talk about "retorquing the heads",  what would indicate that this is
>needed and why?
>Can a handy person (like myself) really do this themselves?
>I would like to think you could replace only the gasket that's leaking
>since they are totally separate.
>
>(I pulled my air-cooled more times than I can count.
>I once replaced the entire clutch only to have the throw out bearing fork
>break
>as soon as I tried to drive it. So, that was a double removal and
>installation in
>one day, in my driveway no less!)
>
>But, the Vanagon is far more complicated and I worry about getting into
>areas that I
>just don't fully understand. i.e. fuel injection, electronic ignition and
>coolant system bleeding to name a few.
>
>Thanks.
>Steve Johnson
>"91 Carat

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