4000 miles is a bit early. One of mine went out on the driver side 1 WEEK
after I had the engine rebuilt!  I mean it was squirting out like someone
was holding their thumb at the end of a garden hose (the gasket had split).
 I had the mechanic give me a "new" rebuilt head  and I did the job myself.
 The head that started leaking was rebuilt with the pits filled in etc. but
I did not want to put the same head back on the van.  The new rebuild was
smooth.  That was 25K ago and I'm still crossing my fingers as I know the
head on the passenger side was rebuilt by the same place the first one was.

        If the van was done only 4000 miles ago perhaps it's still under the
warranty of the mechanic who did the work.

Bryan

-----Original Message-----
From:   marcus [SMTP:marcus46@freewwweb.com]
Sent:   Monday, June 22, 1998 2:10 PM
To:     Bryan Feddish
Cc:     Vanagon@VANAGON.COM
Subject:        Re: Whining about head gaskets

Your logic is right on and thats what I would do. But my  question here is
why
leak at only 4000 miles?? I think I would have po on one side of engine and
the
orginal mechanic on other and I would start screwing their heads down until
I
got some answers.

Bryan Feddish wrote:

> O.K., I return back to my original statement.  With $219 for a rebuilt
> head, I see no reason not to replace them if the old head is coming off
> anyway.  If I were paying a mechanic to do the job, I would DEFINITELY
> spend the extra $219 bucks.   This is like not replacing a clutch with
100K
> miles on it when the tranny is out for some other repair.
>