Azehntel.127
net.vwrabbit
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!menlo70!sytek!zehntel!fred
Thu Nov  5 16:35:03 1981
Overheating
I am prompted to send a message on the vwrabbit net to hopefully
save someone the difficulties my wife and I have had with our 77
Rabbits.  We have two 77 Rabbits with Cool Products after market
air.  In the last six months they were both attacked by the horrible
COOLING SYSTEM MONSTER, and left the family considerably poorer.
The symptoms of this dreaded fiend were the following:

       1. Overheating - the radiator boiled over and the electric
               fan didn't go on.  Reason? (one blown head later)
               if the thermostat is only partially stuck, it will
               let water into the upper 1/3 of the radiator and
               never cause flow in the lower 2/3s.  Guess where the
               thermostatic switch for the fan is, yep the lower
               2/3s.  Since our temperature idiot lights have never
               worked, this caused a BIG problem.  The fix for
               this (of course with 20/20 hindsight) is to
               replace the thermostat.

       2. System leaked fluid, no clear source.  Reason? (second
               blown head) if you put highly mineralized water
               (like we have here) into your aluminum and iron
               engine you create a neat elecro-deplating system.
               What gets deplated?  Why, the steel freeze plugs
               (bet you didn't know you had 'em).  After about
               40K miles of this process, they develop small leaks
               and bye bye fluid.  With no idiot light, bye bye head
               gasket.  The fix for this is leave off the tap water
               and use distilled water or anti-freeze.

I have also experienced problems with my alternators (yes s!) which
I think may be related to the bracket on the air conditioner, but I
don't know.  If anyone knows why I might have killed four alternators,
I sure would like to know.

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