On Mon, 8 Mar 2004, Larry Alofs wrote:

>    It seems to me that if there was some way to attach the proper
> pressure valve at the bleeder opening on the radiator, an overflow
> bottle could be mounted anywhere within a reasonable distance and the
> exact height would not be critical.  This would make the air self-bleed
> from the radiator.

You may be right.  I suspect one of the design goals was to keep all the
critical fluid check points in the engine bay.

I've never found cooling system bleeding to be a big deal on my Vanagon.
It's a minor hassle and you only have to do it when you change the coolant
or replace a hose.  I imagine given how relatively rare that is the VW
engineers figured the extra complexity of making a self-bleeding cooling
system made about as much sense as inventing self-bleeding brakes.

David Brodbeck, N8SRE
'82 Volkswagen Diesel Westfalia
'86 Volvo 240DL wagon