an eventful holiday

1
Hi all,
We bought the silver SYNCRO Caravelle that was on eBay about 5 weeks ago. The body and interior is in very good condition. It was a very quick decision. 
Took it for a drive to Port Maquarie NSW - thanks Hart and Elke for your hospitality. 
We realized that the van had high oil consumption ~ 1.5 l /1000km. 
Went for a few days camping in Willi Willi -  and Wirikimbie Natinal Park - very beautiful and cold @ night. 
Coming out of from the bush tracks and on our way to Barrington Tops National park the van started to loose power.
We broke down just out of Nabiac with smoke coming out from the exhaust. Taree Towing took us to Forster NRMA depot.
They replaced the spark plugs and suggested there is more wrong with the van. It was suggested to to go to Martin Gottstein a local VW specialist - which we did. This was a Monday evening. Contacted RACV total care for accommodation - all sorted. Martin (great workshop) had lots of spare parts for the van and by Friday and a big chunk of money later we had an upper end rebuild + other worn parts replaced. 1 Piston had totally disintegrated. As far as break down goes this was the right place.  Martin was as easy as and extremely helpful.
We made it back home after an enforced break in our busy travel schedule.
 
Tom  *:-&lt sigh
2
Hey Tom, great looking van you've got yourself. Had a good look at it at the Williamstown swap meet, and I suggested to the owner that it would most likely need some work as it was mostly original. Seems I was right. Hope the rest of it is as good as it looks & look forward to seeing it at Yarra Glen. Cheers Eddie.
3

Not a great start to ownership of a new van. On the plus side the mechanicals are all repairable, so if the body and interior are great that's a good base to work from.

also sounds like it has had a good repair done, so should be good for years to come now! Hope you get to enjoy it more!

Had the motor ever been re-built from new? And how many km had it covered?

Richard


---In Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com, <energysustained@...> wrote :

Hi all,
We bought the silver SYNCRO Caravelle that was on eBay about 5 weeks ago. The body and interior is in very good condition. It was a very quick decision. 
Took it for a drive to Port Maquarie NSW - thanks Hart and Elke for your hospitality. 
We realized that the van had high oil consumption ~ 1.5 l /1000km. 
Went for a few days camping in Willi Willi -  and Wirikimbie Natinal Park - very beautiful and cold @ night. 
Coming out of from the bush tracks and on our way to Barrington Tops National park the van started to loose power.
We broke down just out of Nabiac with smoke coming out from the exhaust. Taree Towing took us to Forster NRMA depot.
They replaced the spark plugs and suggested there is more wrong with the van. It was suggested to to go to Martin Gottstein a local VW specialist - which we did. This was a Monday evening. Contacted RACV total care for accommodation - all sorted. Martin (great workshop) had lots of spare parts for the van and by Friday and a big chunk of money later we had an upper end rebuild + other worn parts replaced. 1 Piston had totally disintegrated. As far as break down goes this was the right place.  Martin was as easy as and extremely helpful.
We made it back home after an enforced break in our busy travel schedule.
 
Tom  *:-&lt sigh
4
Hi Richard,

Some work had been done on the engine before, not sure what.
289k km when it broke down.
Still need to assess other parts of the mechanics, 

 
Tom


From: "cathrich1@yahoo.com.au [Syncro_T3_Australia]" <Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com>
To: Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, 11 August 2016, 22:27
Subject: [Syncro_T3_Australia] Re: an eventful holiday

 
Not a great start to ownership of a new van. On the plus side the mechanicals are all repairable, so if the body and interior are great that's a good base to work from.
also sounds like it has had a good repair done, so should be good for years to come now! Hope you get to enjoy it more!
Had the motor ever been re-built from new? And how many km had it covered?
Richard


---In Syncro_T3_Australia@yahoogroups.com, <energysustained@...> wrote :

Hi all,
We bought the silver SYNCRO Caravelle that was on eBay about 5 weeks ago. The body and interior is in very good condition. It was a very quick decision. 
Took it for a drive to Port Maquarie NSW - thanks Hart and Elke for your hospitality. 
We realized that the van had high oil consumption ~ 1.5 l /1000km. 
Went for a few days camping in Willi Willi -  and Wirikimbie Natinal Park - very beautiful and cold @ night. 
Coming out of from the bush tracks and on our way to Barrington Tops National park the van started to loose power.
We broke down just out of Nabiac with smoke coming out from the exhaust. Taree Towing took us to Forster NRMA depot.
They replaced the spark plugs and suggested there is more wrong with the van. It was suggested to to go to Martin Gottstein a local VW specialist - which we did. This was a Monday evening. Contacted RACV total care for accommodation - all sorted. Martin (great workshop) had lots of spare parts for the van and by Friday and a big chunk of money later we had an upper end rebuild + other worn parts replaced. 1 Piston had totally disintegrated. As far as break down goes this was the right place.  Martin was as easy as and extremely helpful.
We made it back home after an enforced break in our busy travel schedule.
 
Tom  *:-< sigh


5
I wonder what fuel it has been run on?
6

I guess there are so many things that could have added up to make the engine fail, running lean, timing out etc. Just thinking on Phill's comment, might be worth checking everything out and make sure everything is working as it should.

Tom, if you have kept all the dead parts, will be an interesting exercise investigating!


Richard