Hello all,

I've been lurking, off and on, here in San Diego for a couple of 
months now, and I'm intrigued (bemused?) by the apparently high 
frequency of head leak problems. My impression from reading this 
list and talking to vanagon owners in my area (and as you could see 
from the Truck Trader ads posted by someone the other day, there are 
a lot of vanagons around here) is that ALL vanagons have this 
problem, sooner or later. I've been through it with both of mine (an 
84 and my current 90), and, frankly, it pisses me off. Don't get me 
wrong, I love these vehicles, warts and all, and given that they are 
no longer produced, I plan to keep my 90 carat for a long 
time.(Which is why I really appreciate this list). 

I'll post the details of my head repairs directly to Alf for his FTC 
compilation, but spare the rest of you for now. The real reason for 
this post is to see if anyone can explain what may have led to the 
following: Two days (and maybe 50 miles) after having the heads 
redone on my 84, the wiring harness did a complete meltdown! This is 
now only an academic issue, as it happened about 3 years ago, its 
long since been paid for, and I no longer own the van, but the 
situation still nags me a bit. 

The head work was done by an independent garage - one that works on 
lots of pricey German stuff like MBs, BMWs, and Audis, and has a 
pretty good reputation. The local dealer offered no assistance with 
the repair costs, and said nothing about VWoA maybe chipping in, so 
I took it elsewhere for a lower bid. (Unfortunately, I handed over 
all my paperwork when I sold the van, so don't have the 
documentation to attempt to recover some of the expense through the 
FTC). Anyway, the head work was done on schedule, within the 
estimate, and all apeared copacetic. Then, two days later while at a 
traffic light, a very bad nasty smell took over the poor baby, smoke 
luffed out of the engine compartment, and poof! it ran no more. I 
had it towed to the garage (it was after hours) and the next day 
made calls to service departments of two VW dealers, and two other 
VW independent garages. The consensus was, gee, it seems pretty 
suspicious, they probably did something to cause the meltdown, but 
it will be hard to prove, since the head work shouldn't involve 
messing with the wiring, other than unplugging and replugging, and 
the van did run correctly when they were done. 

So, I blustered and argued with the shop owner, and he finally 
agreed to replace the harness for cost of the part only (which I 
later found out he jacked up quite a bit...). I paid the hundreds of 
dollars, and went on my way, poorer but no wiser.

So, my question (at long last) to the collective expertise of this 
fantastic list is, was it a coincidence, or did I get $crewed? If 
the latter, what could those guys possibly have done when replacing 
the heads to cause the meltdown?

Serious hypotheses, wild speculation, and wise-acre remarks are all 
quite welcome. (I'm on the digest...responses lagged).

Steve R.
'90 carat
ex's: '84 vanagon
      '77 rabbit
      '71 westy
      '70 bug
      '60 sunroof super90 (that was a fast VW!)
 
-------------------------------------
Name: Stephen B. Reilly
Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NMFS, NOAA
PO Box 271, La Jolla, CA 92038 USA
E-mail: steve@caliban.ucsd.edu 

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