On our westy, type 4 FI motor with remote oil cooler we get no hotter than 210F on a hot day with motorway driving. We have had 240F in town but it didn't stay that high once we got driving again. What's the state of your thermocouple - is it bolted up correctly?
mark i dunno that's the point, will look at tekenders, to be honest if the worry gauge wasn't fitted you'd never know, after doubledecker said feel the dipstick i'm less worried, i reckon although it probably does run a bit hot it's a dodgy gauge as well.
I think you know what your problem is before posting . no thermostat and no under tins .All these are needed for efective cooling .The thermocouple is screwed IN TO the head between 3 and 4 . Also the dipstick passes though the fan case on a type4 and is therefor cooled where as the type 1 engine it is not so gives a more feel of the oil temp . I guess your cooling flaps are in the failsafe open position ? As said before with your j tubes fitted there is more air to cool the heads . If its any help i have a spare thermocouple/sender you could borrow ?
i was under the impression that no thermostat wasn't 'critical' because realistically the thermostat helps it warm up quicker but doesn't actually do anything once it's open (normal running) so all it does at the moment is take longer to get up to temp? as for the flap in failsafe i'm unsure if flaps are fitted as there is no rod for the flaps, i don't wanna sound all cocky but i'm fine with no thermo for now and as for bottom tins i know lots of vans run without them,and if any tinware can be missing that's the least critical, i guess what i really need to do is find out how reliable the gauge is, thanks for the offer of a loan i'll bear it in mind.
yeah we have it points the air down on the oil cooler ...... i'm sure it must be there as it's been fine up until now for over 3000 miles
Apart from now some of the air's being used for heating even less is drifting through the cooler and it's running hotter. Fact.
thanks zed, as i thought then, which is what i went round the houses trying to explain how since unblocking the fan it now ran hotter. as i said, if no gauge was fitted you wouldnt know.
The air stream under your engine has changed going from j tubes to heat ex,,,,,,,ers. that's why you now need the tin. ? thinking out loud
thanks jan, again i touched on that idea too, told you i was just wanting a brainstorm! trouble is that tin is as rare as hens teeth
cheers my man, it's usually the first tin to rot out in this climate, i've looked under many vans and one or both is usually missing, also for some reason the americans seem to think they know better than vw and remove stats and tin to suit themselves, somewhere in america there's a warehouse full of type 4 tin...
totally off the cuff here...do you know what type of thermocouple you have fitted and what type of thermocuple your gauge is configured for? Part of my job is calibrating thermocouples for furnaces and temperature gauges for highly accurate elevated temperature fatigue tests (where a test at say 900'C must maintain a 1% accuracy for the test duration). If you (for example) have an N Type Thermocouple (Pink/White wiring) connected to an analogue temperature gauge configured to a K Type (Green/White wiring) this will give a reading of approx 100'C above the actual reading. You need to have a thermocouple at the head matched to the connecting wire also matched to the gauge. Its a bit ott for our vans use
no idea mark i didn't fit it, never seen the wiring etc will take it apart on sat at tekenders and looksee
Hi ricky, i'll add my bit, as i know our vans are (were ) the same. When i got my van i had a vdo head temp gauge fitted and the sensor was a loop style conector bolted to the head at cyl 3, visible from inside the engine bay. It seemed to have a mind of its own so after a bit of research i chucked it in the bin. Now after 6 years and 12,000 miles without any temp gauges all is fine. I just worry about the fuel gauge and how fast it drops. I,ve never had a thermostat but all my tin is in place. I have read that fitting j tubes can make the engine run hotter. hope this helps.
cheers vinny, i must admit if the gauge wasn't fitted the temp of the engine bay and the oil itself wouldn't have me worried, it runs fine and doesn't seem hot, you may have had the best plan.
vw never fitted a temp gauge, so chuck it out. They did however fit a full set of tins so try and get some sorted. I'd like to get a thermostat but they seem hard to find ( advice welcome ). If its just the bottom tins you need maybe you could make some of your own.
