Over filling the oil will cause problems.
Too much oil vapor slinging around in the crankcase gets picked up by the
crankcase ventilator and sucked through the carb / FI /turbo etc.
Also coats the cylinder walls and can cook to the bottoms of your pistons as
they get hot from over heating.
Easy to remove some oil just loosen the oil strainer nut and you can let out
as much as you want.
You do realize that with that cooler above the transaxle it's always going
to bleed back down into the crankcase and give you false readings. (That is
why I mounted my Mazda RX 7 oil cooler under the frame in the air flow, no
fans).
Since your reading after the car sits for 30 minutes isn't going to be
correct I suggest that you set your oil level after starting the car on a
very level surface and then shutting it down and wait about three minutes.
Set the oil level to about 1/8" below the top mark on your dipstick that is
marked MAX.

Stan Wilder

----- Original Message -----
From: "Skip Emmert-Keaton" <skip@SKIPEMMERT.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 2:24 PM
Subject: Oil cooler

> OK, the maiden voyage with the new cooler has been taken with mixed
results.
> I managed to put too much oil in and am going to have to remove some.  I
> also am leaking some oil from somewhere, but it doesn't seem to be from
any
> of the new lines.  Is oil expelled from somewhere if it's over-filled?
> Lastly the van doesn't seem to have as much power as it did, but been
> several weeks and I can't accurately compare.  Would overfilling the oil
> cause a performance problem or did I unintentionally 'adjust' something
> while working on the van.  If so, what would be a likely culprit?
>
>
> Thanks for any help,
>
> Skip Emmert-Keaton
> 1980 Westy <Ziegelstein>