In a message dated 98-08-16 20:45:21 EDT, BDOSS24046@AOL.COM writes:

> When at home, doing a little clean up, and found
>  some orange crystaline crap in the little divet where the sensor wires plug
>  into the top of the tank. Now I'm wondereing what made the tank crack?
Could
> I have done something wrong when I did flush and fill? Can the cap be the
>  culprit? I should think that the cap should allow the pressure to be
> relieved ie to bleed into the overflow resevoir. I have considered that
perhaps the
>  crack existed before, and I didn't notice it because it doesn't leak, and
>  perhaps the cap wasn't on tight enough (the crack looks old, and is right
at
>  the top where the cap spout is). Of course, I'm going to replace the tank,
> and the cap, but I hope that if I did something to cause the crack I can
prevent
>  the problem from occuring again.

I think that age, heat, and pressure all team up to cause these cracks.  I've
replaced the tanks on both my Vanagons and on a friend's.  I have a spare now,
cause I know that sooner or later these too will fail.  I don't thisk there's
anything that can be done to prevent their failure.

Regards,
Jim Davis