Not boring. But kind a "slice of life"

Sent from my electronic umbilicus

Karl Wolz

On Sep 22, 2011, at 8:40 PM, mark drillock <mdrillock@COX.NET> wrote:

> This very morning I left home before 5:00 am to head into the belly of
> the beast known as Los Angeles, intent on a couple of Vanagon related
> missions. An hour and a half later I was on the 110 freeway headed
> toward the harbor from the downtown direction. The beast was well awake
> but not completely roaring yet. As I neared my exit swept up in the flow
> of other cars also trying desperately to get where they were going
> before the full madness of the beast was upon them, I tried to assess
> the best way to get over and through the dense right lane of slower
> semis hauling containers. I made it into my exit lane with a sense of
> relief, and then my heart skipped a beat when I noticed a flashing led
> on the dash. The coolant temp gauge was reading normal but the led was
> blinking. I looked in my mirror to see what looked like a cloud of dust
> trailing me, back-lit by the traffic behind me. Uh oh.
>
> After exiting as planned I pulled over on a nearby street to check
> things out. Steam was billowing and coolant was dripping off the bottom
> of the engine but it all slowly stopped after I shut off the key. I let
> things cool a little and then started slowly pouring in water from some
> jugs I was carrying. It took about a half gallon and nothing was
> dripping. I started the engine and immediately a small stream was
> flowing onto the ground from somewhere near the thermostat housing. I
> shut it down and slid under to try and spot the leak. I could see a
> small split in a hose. I decided to try to nurse it the rest of the way
> to my friend Leon's place, where I hoped I could fix it. He does Subaru
> conversions as a business and as a result has leftover wbx pieces. It
> was my main destination to begin with so the early hour would not be a
> big problem though I had intended to get something to eat first. Oh well.
>
> Leon was outside near his shop, and only a little surprised to see me so
> early. I told him my problem and he seemed to snicker as he saw the
> trail I had left as I turned to park on the street in front of his
> place. He led me to a recently pulled wbx and it's various bits that he
> did not need for the conversion. The hose I needed was right there,
> loose in a pile of stuff. It was the hose that runs from the plastic
> coolant tower over the tranny to the thermostat housing. I grabbed it
> and went to my van to root around under the rear seat for gloves and
> tools. There I spotted a new one of the same hose, still in a clear
> plastic wrapper. I knew I had bought a couple of them lately but did not
> exactly remember that I had put that one under there.
>
> The engine was too hot to touch right away and since the sidewalk was a
> little busy with mothers walking their kids to school I did not feel
> like it was a good time to possibly make a big mess on a public street.
> We decided to use Leon's van to go on our mission of salvaging Vanagon
> parts from a late model Westy that was in a pick-a-part not too far
> away. I had brought my van there to carry home the Westy Poptop that
> Leon spotted on the van and in decent shape a few days prior. It was
> still there when we arrived so I worked on removing it while Leon worked
> on gathering other parts for his own purposes. The canvas was shot but
> everything else was good, even the stock seals. It took a couple hours
> to carefully undo everything but when I was ready Leon helped lift it
> down and load it onto a huge cart that the yard provided for such
> purposes. We grabbed a few other items too, naturally. The kitchen was
> already gone, as were the engine, tranny, power mirrors, etc.
>
> We checked out, loaded up Leon's van, and headed back to his place so I
> could fix my van and move my stuff into it. A complete Westy poptop
> fairly easily fits inside of a passenger van when the back seat is laid
> flat. It takes 2 people of course. With 86+ A/C it is a bit of a squeeze
> to load the top through the rear hatch past the A/C support pillars but
> it goes ok.
>
> I installed my new hose, added coolant, warmed up the engine, and bled
> the radiator.  With my top and other items transferred into it, I headed
> off on the second Vanagon related mission, over on the other side of the
> beast.
>
> Mark