My first 'longer' trip in my 84 (with an inline 4 Golf Jetta motor) since
around Xmas.  I've been driving it, after letting it stand for a few months,
for a month now on shorter trips.  Everything seems fine, no poor running or
power loss, no strange behavior at all...

 I may be 'gunshy' now or perhaps overly-concerned for no real reason but
when I first got this van, I caused myself some extra work because I was
unfamiliar with the WBX cooling system. I  didn't get a proper air-bleed
after flushing the coolant for new..This resulted in some odd temperature
behavior issues that I didn't 'pick up' on until I had damaged my
headgasket.  I had to replace the headgasket on the I-4 motor, no big
deal..about 3-4hrs only, but I could have done BIG harm if I'd ignored
it...thanks to the list I caught it in time to avoid major damage..So now
I've learned to pay close attention to how my WBX cooling system (the I-4
plugs almost directly into the stock vanagon 'circulatory system') is
behaving.

  Yesterday I did about 250 miles around Mt Hood going to and from a bike
race and I noticed my temperature gauge was reading slightly lower than
usual.  I put a tank of premium fuel into the van and that is what I was
burning on this trip, if that would make a difference.

  My temp gauge usually reads on or just slightly above the second of the
bottom two marks...below that  LED.  Yesterday I was seeing the needle just
above the bottom of those two lines, even when climbing to ~5000'...until I
got back to low elevation when I noticed it back nearly to where it always
has been...Some fluctuations in the reading...Not a fluttering of the
needle, the gauge looks to be operating normally...but the needle would
move, over a 10-20min period from quite cool to where it normally has run
and maybe fall again...So my gauge is showing 'system running very slightly
cooler than normal'

  When I got home I went back and opened the license plate to check my
coolant overflow tank level.  It was over-full and poured out about a cup of
coolant when I removed the cap...So I opened her up to check the pressure
tank...No air in there.  The coolant looks normal, also..no combustion by
products are evident.  Water pump feels fine, though I didn't take off the
drive belt and spin it...Next, I went to the air bleed screw in the rad.  It
took about a cup of coolant, added right into the bleed screw hole, as I've
devised as 'my' method of getting the last air bubble out of my radiator.

  So what would cause my coolant to 'migrate' from the pressurized cooling
system into that overflow tank? and should I be concerned?  It's not
running  out of the Normal temp range, but pretty close to 'too cool'... any
change in operating temp is alarming to me, since when my first problem
happened, the symptoms were 'cold air from the heater' and the temp gauge
behaving quite erratically...

  Don Hanson