"fill her up with water" sounds dubious to me.  does that mean you bled
the system?  if not, you can get one hell of an air bubble at a variety
of important locales that will render your cooling system useless.

i just did an emergency fill and bleed while offroad at the syncro de
mayo, filled with water from my potable tank, bled, and came off the
mountain.  ever since, due to the superior bleeding job (the front end
was close to 60 cm higher than the ass end) compared with the bleed i
did two weeks earlier after replacing the long hoses, my van has been
running half a needle cooler.

make sure it's properly bled before you do anything else...

bill
'87 syncro westfalia
santa cruz, ca

On Tuesday, May 21, 2002, at 12:15 , TJ Hemrick wrote:

> Ok, So the old brick overheated on me the other day and blew a
> "t-piece"(that's the real name of a plastic junction for four rubber
> hoses
> on Syncro's only) So, I finally get around to replacing it, fill her up
> with
> water and the temp gauge goes through the roof again.  I replace the
> thermostat & O-ring and no change.  Any thought?  Too bad the part costs
> $40.00 but between the hotel, cab home, food and supplies for kids/wife,
> plus trips back to where the van is broke down 1.5 hours away(each way)
> i'm
> in the hole about $360.00 and I'm still not making any progress.  I'm
> starting to hate that old thing... Any help from you folks far more
> experienced with this problem would be as always, GREATLY appreciated.
>
> TJ
> 87 Syncro GL
>
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