Marc, your situation reminds me of an end of the first engine I had in my
'82 diesel.  One minute is was running fine and the next minute a piston was
through the block.  I had been running it flat out for several hours and was
near Livonia, MI, on I-275.  There was no indication of low oil pressure.

John
Macon, GA
'84 7-passenger (newly repainted)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marc Perdue" <marcperdue@ADELPHIA.NET>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 11:27 PM
Subject: It was a great ride . . .

> I took my '87 Westfalia into the dealer today to get it inspected, oil
changed,
> tires rotated and balanced, and cooling system bled.  The last was because
there
> was some pressure buildup in the pressure tank and the coolant level was
> dropping below the level of the sensor, causing the red blinky light to
come
> on.  No overheating, mind you.  Well, the van passed the inspection with
flying
> colors and I picked it up and headed down the highway for home.  I had
gotten
> about two miles when I started hearing this tink, tink, tink sound.  I was
just
> starting to wonder what it could be when there was a big boom and
smoke/steam
> started pouring out the rear of the van and into the van as well!  I was
right
> at an exit, so I pulled it off the highway and coasted into a parking lot
at the
> bottom.  I was looking around trying to find what was leaking and where
when I
> noticed that something looked different.  The bottom end of a piston crank
was
> sticking up through the top of the engine!!  :^(
>
> To make a long and truly sad story a bit shorter, I had the van towed back
to
> the dealer.  I will talk to them tomorrow and see what arrangements will
be made
> to remedy this, but I'm not hopeful.  I keep going through this in my head
and I
> can't get over the feeling that the dealer screwed something up.  If they
didn't
> bleed it correctly, could it blow up without overheating?
>
> Here's a little run-down on my van:  I bought it just over 4 years ago,
with
> 113,000 miles on it.  The automatic transmission was shot, but the engine
had
> been rebuilt at 111,000 miles.  It now has almost 148,000 miles on it.
I've
> tried to do a good job of maintaining it and am surprised that this
happened
> with only 37,000 miles on the rebuilt engine.
>
> This is really depressing, but I wanted to share my tale of woe with you
all
> because this list was so helpful to me when I first got my van and I guess
> misery loves company.
>
> Take care all,
> Marc Perdue, '87 Westfalia, "Westy"