you could say the year and verison of your water-cooled vanagon.
(i'd say fully 1/4th of the questions and inquires I get lack basic info
like that ......ahem ...'interestingly.' )

what pops into my mind is that you are seeing some detritus from there
the metal inserts in the ends of the plastic main coolant pipes are
coming apart... those pieces sliding out some.
'they do that' ....on 4 ends of plastic main pipes, which start in mid
85 in vanagons.

that's what it makes me think of.
unless you have a watercooled vanagon with metal pipes...82 diesel, and
83 to mid 85 waterboxer.

On 6/29/2013 10:30 AM, David J wrote:
> Folks,
>
> Checking why my radiator fan wasn't coming on, so removed and tested the radiator temp switch (the large module that screws into the radiator and gets power to the fan when the temp is high enough).  Inside the radiator was what seemed to be a rubber band, sticking into that side channel, as if it extended from the coils.  It stuck out far enough out so I could easily hook my finger in and pull.  It snapped, and I removed a 1.5" chunk of (seemingly) rubber.  Feeling around again, there was at least one more, another inch down, feeling the same - as if it was supposed to be there, but had extruded from the coil.  If I'd had x-ray vision, my impression was that all the way down and maybe up, it looked like the edge of a spiral notebook, except with rubber...
>
> What gives??  I have a radiator on order (just in case) this radiator should be swapped-out.
>
> Thanks,
>
> David
> PDX
>