Skip to main content
Gerry | Vanagon
Checking account...
← vanagon.com home · Continue the discussion in the forum
Subject:Re: Was Can you run without coolant...Now How Badly Can You Abuse a WBX? (Very long)
From:Don Hanson
Date:Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:53:21 -0800

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 12:30 PM, Peter T. Owsianowski <
pnoceanwesty@gmail.com> wrote:

> Wow.  I freaked out driving our 2.1 up the hill and back into barn with no
> coolant once.
>

"Rubber Headgaskets"?   What were they thinking when they built that?   I
can see now why anyone who still has a running WBX motor might be a bit
'gunshy' about running a little low on coolant....and why those motors have
such a reputation for reliability issues and frequent expensive rebuilding
of the top of them..

 I have heard this mentioned before...the O-rings to keep the coolant
in....I guess I need to look sometime at a Bently for the WBX motor and see
how the stock motor was put together..  Sounds a bit 'iffy'....but I guess
they work well enough...

  Does anyone know why they never brought the South African inline motor to
world wide production for the vanagon?  Just curious if that motor had
issues, too, that precluded it being adopted world-wide, since even VW
dealers of old would say...."Waterboxers have weak heads" or some variation
of that....

  Don Hanson