Of course more lights and buzzers can be added to what little is already
there. Gauges can be even better. When things fail though it is amazing how
fast the situation can get out of control. Traveling home from work there is
stretch of road that always has heavy traffic. A few years ago I was driving
FUN BUS home from work. Stopped at the light before about a mile before the
parkway entrance. Everything looked good. Oil temp, pressure, volts good.
Stopped at the next light for the left run onto the parkway looked down,
coolant light flashing and alternator light on. Looked in the rear view
mirror and steam everywhere. Finish making turn and shut it down. Belt off,
Steam reliving from pressure cap-expansion bottle. No hoses blown. Let it
cool, replace belt. Didn't have coolant with me. Nursed to gas station close
by. In that little bit of time lost about 1-1/2 gallons coolant. Luckily
engine still running OK.

During the last couple of years my motor home has specialized in breaking
hose clamps, getting leaks and overheating. The low coolant light has worked
for most failures. The engine derate-cutoff worked for the fan belt
breaking. Nothing like trying to dive off the side of the road as the power
is turned off in a 39 ft motor home.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
John Rodgers
Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2011 4:23 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: flashing coolant light purpose

I wonder if there would be some other way to identify such a failure. I
wouldn't mind having an audio alarm of some type in addition to the
light for low coolant warning - but if a belt breaks and the pump stops
turning  and pumping - like  you say - you may miss what the real
problem is until it's to late. As a matter of fact - until you mentioned
this, I don't think I had ever even thought  of it. Now I am aware, I
know to stop immediately when that alternator light comes on and check
things out.

To add to this discussion just a bit - pilots are trained to do an
instrument panel scan every few moments. Look out side, look at flight
instruments, look outside, look at the engine instruments, look outside,
look back at the flight instruments. That scan is a sweep, outside to
the left- then inside. Outside straight ahead, then inside. Outside to
the right, then back inside. Next it gets reversed, but it's constantly
outside, inside, outside, inside. This assures both for flight safety
and for safety of the airplane itself - it is very closely monitored.
All of us would do well to develop a similar procedure. The frequency of
the sweep of the engine instruments is not as critical in our beloved
vans as for an airplane, but can definitely pick up on changes from one
sweep to another - before something bad can happen. It is astonishing
the number of people who just get in their vehicles and just drive,
never ever monitoring the engine until it acts up or quits.

Do Happy Scanning, Have  Happy Driving!

John

John Rodgers
Clayartist and Moldmaker
88'GL VW Bus Driver
Chelsea, AL
Http://www.moldhaus.com

On 9/22/2011 9:03 AM, Dennis Haynes wrote:
> The other major coolant
> system failure is loss of water pump drive. This is covered with the
> alternator warning light but the operator has to know to check that. Often
> the light comes on and the driver thinks that only the alternator failed
and
> keeps driving until the overheat-steam-blown hose event occurs.