Art,

Are you sure it is the head gasket?

The same thing happened to me (right at about 100K).
One day everything was fine no problems then gush all
over. The head gasket appeared fine and still rubbery.

It turns out the head had a hairline crack from the
exhaust port to the spark plug thread.  It would not
leak (much) until the engine was nice and warm then
gush.  With winter coming I did not want to mess with
this problem so I ended up replacing both heads.

Ouch $2000$ for the job.

Cheers,

Joel
89 Westy Syncro

--- Art Beutler <abeutler@GETNET.COM> wrote:
> My 1986 Wolfburg Weekender has suddenly made the
> transition from no
> coolant loss from the head gaskets to spouting a
> gusher of coolant.
> Last time I dove the Vanagon before this occurred
> was yesterday; today I
> noticed after I ran it just long enough to move it
> from one parking
> space to an adjacent one a significant wet spot was
> forming on the
> driveway.  This I quickly traced to a leak at the
> head gasket on the
> right side of the engine; specifically it is at the
> bottom of the head
> right in between the two sets of pushrods.
>
> I had thought that these things tend to develop
> gradually starting with
> a few drops per day; this is a few drops per minute!
>  The gasket
> material feels reasonably flexible, the leak is on
> the head side of the
> gasket, and the surrounding area is clean.  As
> usual, I have several
> qustions for the wisdom of the list to ponder:
>
> 1)      Is my situation unusual (going from no leak
> to a high rate leak)?
> 2)      If the answer to (1) is yes, are there other
> likely causes than
> corrosion?
> 3)      What is my range of options?
>
>                 Thanks,
>
>                 Art Beutler
>

=====

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