This is for those of you who are "fortunate" enough to own a Vanagon with 
an oil cooler.  CHECK IT NOW !  Before it's too late  !
The other day it was -35 out, yes I said -35 and that's centigrade for you 
Americans, my female partner went out, started the van to warm it up for her 
drive to work.  After having some breakfast and getting dressed she went out 
and next thing I hear is, FRANK ! something's wrong with the van !.  Well, I 
go to look and see a large puddle of oil on the snow and it's pissing
out from  somewhere underneath like there is no tomorrow.  SHUT IT OFF, I
YELL !  So..I go get dressed and open the garage and start it up and back it 
in and it's making like the crankshaft wants to come out and the racket is 
deafening or is it my imagination thinking of how expensive a new motor is !  
So....I get it in the garage and fill it with oil and start it to see where 
the leak is... ya hoo !  Found it, behind the oil filter, so what's this 
gizmo behind the oil filter anyway ?  Well, it turns out to be THE OIL 
COOLER !,  I didn't know I had an oil cooler !  So I go about taking the
oil filter off and finding the nut that holds the oil cooler on and find 
out that it's loose.  I decide to tighten it before looking more as it seems 
complicated to remove it.  Well, it still leaked so I had to remove the
cooler to find the BROKEN O-ring behind.  Whether or not the -35 temp. had 
anything to do with this is not sure.  All I know is that the van got started 
at -35 without the aid of the blockheater which was plugged in but the
DAMN GROUND FAULT DETECTOR detected ground and NO POWER.....THANKS A LOT !
After rumaging around in my junk I found an O-ring to fit and got the
engine going but was making a loud clacking sound, sure sounded like a rod
bearing to me, BUT after some investigation with a srewdriver as a sound
probe the noise was detected near the top end of the cylinder under the
alternator.  Taking off the valve cover while the engine was running and
prying on the rocker arms a bit the noise went away when I did the second
rocker in.  COLLAPSED lifter  !  YEA !.  Not a rod bearing  !  Well, the
moral of this story is, check your oil cooler and change that O-ring if
it's suspect.  Mine was cooked - hard - brittle - so the high oil pressure
at - 35 startup blew it, most probable scenario.  I guess I was lucky that
the noise was just a collapsed lifter, it COULD have been worse !

Cheers,

Frank, how long can a Vanagon engine run without oil ?

-- 
              *  Frank Condelli  *  Kinburn, Ontario, Canada  * 
                      *  ad793@Freenet.carleton.ca  *