A very similar thing happened to me, but I got lucky.

On my VanaJetta conversion, though already running ok, I had to move
the expansion bottle down about 1.5" to clear the engine lid.

Cause and effect: moving the bottle down moved the heater hose too.
Hose rubbed on the axle. Lucky me no leaks.

I shunted a piece of "lipped" piece of 1/2" copper into the heater
hose. I"m sure your can find a 5/8" piece for this purpose at your
FLAPS. But if stuck with only 1/2" copper pipe, either put a lip on
each end, or double clamp each end.

(your heater hose should be 5/8")

Cheers,

Neil.

On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 11:13 AM, craig cowan <phishman068@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well yesterday i drove down to my favorite rock climbing area and saw the
> coolant guage just starting to act a little funny. Well we got there, did
> our thing, and when we came back to the car and the engine was cool looked
> around to see what was up.....
> It took 1.5 gallons of coolant/water (which luckily we had!) to fill it back
> up, no obvious leak, and we drove it the 17 miles home without overheating
> it. Once again i find it today very low, and with some puddling marks below
> the car....so i investigate to find:
> That one of the very long coolant hoses that goes from the engine up to the
> front (Not the metal pipes, the heater hoses) was rubbing on the CV boot and
> has rubbed through. I HOPE that's the only hole in the cooling system. My
> question is, can i just splice a new section in? Does anyone see a problem
> with that?
> I'd much rather not replace the whole 12 foot piece...... when 2 feet would
> do.
> Is this 3/4'' hose? This hose in particular is the one that goes to the
> right side engine head and i'd be simply splicing in a bit that needs to be
> replaced. Any thoughts?
>
> Power steering is next.....
>
> -Craig
> '85Westy "Piddles"
>

--
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/