At 08:35 PM 9/21/2011, Edward Maglott wrote:
>So if you get a sudden loss of
>coolant the gauge might not even register elevated temp because there
>would be no hot coolant hitting the sender.  Is this right?

Loss-of-coolant accidents (LOCAs in nuclear-speak) can cause this in
many (most?  all?) engines.  But iron engines are a lot more
forgiving than aluminum ones about short-term overheating.  I lent an
old Subaru to a young friend and he thought he could drive it just a
short distance to get it home with a coolant dump.  He learned otherwise...

And there are lots of failure points on the Vanagon cooling system.

Yours,
David