I'm certainly going to investigate further, but I couldn't see or feel any 
coolant around the hose fitting. I used a dentist mirror to get the best 
look I could and it appeared coolant was weeping right out of the head, in 
a line, just under the flange for the stud. It's hard for me to believe 
there could be an invisible crack that goes all the way through the head to 
the coolant chamber.

I really hate to do anything involving removing the head right now and am 
tempted to use some kind of "JB Weld" product to seal the crack. But then, 
the crack is liable to grow and then fail catastrophically.

-Mark McCulley

----------
>From: 	Joel Walker[SMTP:JWALKER@UA1VM.UA.EDU]
Sent: 	Tuesday, March 12, 1996 7:08 PM

=========================================================================
Date:         
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         
Subject:      Re: 87 Vanagon: Not your ordinary leaking head

is it in any way possible that it is the hose leaking?? sometimes as the
hoses get old, they expand with the heat of the engine, but have lost their
elasticity and cannot shrink back as fast as the metal ... so they start
leaking. you might try putting a tighten-able clamp on that hose and see
if it helps to clamp the hose a little bit tighter. or replace the hose
(which means coolant all over the place :(

it is is truly a crack, you don't have many options ...
- repair the head (welding and redrilling the bolt hole).
- replace the head.  might as well do both heads while you are at it.
- replace the whole engine.

the first two involve pretty much the same effort and mess. well, actually
i guess they all do: draining the coolant and removing the engine. and 
while
you are doing all this, you might as well think about some new hoses for 
the
coolant (not much sense in putting the old ones back). :(

no matter which way you slice it, it ain't gonna be cheap or easy. :(

joel