Sorry to hear about your Christmas time hassles. More than likely, the
outer seal has failed due to a combination of age and use or abuse. How
many miles are on the engine and what is its overall condition? If the
compression, leak down, and oil pressure is good, than you may have many
more good miles to go. I now have 210K on the FUN BUS with the original
engine including the head gaskets. A few of my customers are now there
also. It is possible. The hardest part of doing a gasket repair is the
removal of the exhaust pipes. After this, the next hurdle may be
removing the heads from the cylinder barrels. The labor books estimate
9-10 hours for this job, both sides. You will need the head gaskets set,
with exhaust gaskets, and the head nuts should always be replaced. For
sealing the gaskets, I have used both Hylomar and the "Right Stuff" with
great success. The Hylomar can also be used on the O rings on the ends
of the cylinders. The Hylomar is a non hardening sealer that fill many
voids including light pitting on the head surface. The "Right Stuff" is
a rubber type sealant that actually bonds to both metal and rubber
surfaces. American OEMs use it to replace formed oil pan and valve cover
gaskets, it can fill larger gaps. Use this if the head or case is
heavily pitted. Do not use it on the cylinder O rings or the top
cylinder metal gasket. It will fail there. Good Luck and Merry
Christmas.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf
Of jesse johnson
Sent: Thursday, December 25, 2003 6:58 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Was running rich cold...

Hey All,
Well suddenly the running rich cold issue is not a big problem compared
to my LEAKING HEAD!! AUGH!!
Took off for a trip to Virginia for Christmas.. got about 10 min into
the trip... coolant light comes on! Pull off the highway..coolant
coming from underneath the air deflector plate on the right head! So i
had to fill the coolant system with Seltzer Water!! But it got me
home... its leaking like crazy.
So my questions is this... if its leaking from the seal where the head
bolts onto the block.. is it worth pulling the head and replacing the
seal? Or will replacing the seal not fix the issue? I need to take off
the air deflector plate just to confirm this is what is leaking.. but
if it is.. i would like to be able to limp until this spring and then
put a new engine in... So anyone have any thoughts on doing this? Is it
worth it?
If it is.. what seals and misc. stuff will i need to do the job? Any
help would be great....
Thanks all,
Jesse
89 carat... peeing all the way home!