Don.

Glad to hear there were no dire consequences and that a 2WD Vanagon
can handle ok with a *rear* blowout.

Too bad about the tire though....

Neil.

On Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 9:21 PM, Don Hanson <dhanson@gorge.net> wrote:
> This morning at "O-dark-thirty" I headed west down I-84 towards Portland to
> make a bike race..About 1/2 an hour into the drive, I have a 'mandated'
> stop, and as I re-approach the van, I hear a hissing, like the radiator is
> boiling or a hose has a pin hole or something.."Great," I think," now I may
> have problems and miss the race."  I do a walk around and look for coolant,
> check everything visually..nothing...I only have about 15 miles to the race,
> so I think..."Get going, maybe it is just a little hot from the fast freeway
> driving..fix it after the race"...I start west again, with an eye on all the
> gauges..  This being the Windy Columbia River Gorge, the van is doing it's
> usual  gusty 'cha-cha' but I detect a little  more "Sashay" than usual..then
> I hear this huge 'bang!'...I check the mirrors and see a big cloud of
> smoke..."Dang" I think, "That bragging about how dependable my motor has
> been musta jinxed me, and she let go"  But the gauges still look normal..and
> then it hits....I have a freaking flat tire!  By the time I got slowed and
> off to the shoulder, the thing was in shreds..Lost one of my nice new K-mart
> wheel covers, too.
>   The van was remarkable stable without a rear tire.. Nankang LTR,  BTW,
> with good tread left..I would have thought with it's high center of gravity
> and short wheel base, a vanagon would be a real handful with a blow
> out..Quite the opposite..
>    So a quick change, and I still made the bike race..
>
>  Don Hanson
>

--
Neil Nicholson '81 JettaWesty "Jaco
http://groups.google.com/group/vanagons-with-vw-inline-4-cylinder-gas-engines
http://web.mac.com/tubaneil
http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/