Vanagon Bong

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Originally uploaded by stuart_jeffx

I have built my own "Libby Bong" thanks to advice from the Samba and a very awesome reader of my blog - thanks Ron! This brilliant little contraption makes it possible to bleed my coolant system from the comfort of my own street without having to jack up the front of my van. A little while ago I replaced my temp II sensor and my temp sender in the thermostat housing of the Vanagon. This went just fine but since I couldn't raise my van high enough to follow the procedure outlined in the Bentley manual I was concerned that I had left air bubbles in my coolant system. I found the details of how to build it over on www.thesamba.com. A guy by the name of Libby devised a simple contraption from a couple of parts available at the Home Depot that artificially raises the level of the expansion tank which allows you to just use gravity to force all of the air into the bleeding column in the radiator. It is just a section of 2" PVC pipe with a 2" to 1.5" "PlumbQuik" connector that clamps to the top of the coolant expansion tank. The brilliant part is the 1/2" OD plastic tubing that inserts just above connector, goes into the expansion tank, and is attached to the top of the PVC pipe. Once you bleed the coolant system you then detach tube from the top, insert it into a coolant jug, and lower it below the expansion tank. That causes all of the coolant remaining in the PVC column to empty back into the coolant jug. Once all of the coolant is out of the column you top off the expansion tank with coolant, replace the expansion cap, and drive off without any air in your coolant system.

The other news from this weekend is that it looks like I've finally solved my freaking out temperature gauge. Thanks to a reader comment from this blog (thanks Jed!) I decided to remove the sensor from the expansion tank and check it for corrosion. Sure enough the probes were covered in some nastiness. I used my trusty wire brush to get them looking nice and shiny again. Now my coolant light no longer blinks! I didn't even have to replace any parts.