Date:         Sun, 8 Apr 2001 13:25:38 -0700
Reply-To:     harald_nancy <harald_nancy@EMAIL.MSN.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         harald_nancy <harald_nancy@EMAIL.MSN.COM>
Subject:      Re: 50 cents to fix the AFM
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Steven,
That's interesting that your '90 westy has the
hesitation symptom only in the high desert.
Our '90 westy does the same (occasional
hesitation on long trips, sometimes rough
running intermittently), but only when we leave
the Pacific Northwest southbound. As soon as
we enter California, it starts being "temperamental".
Especially on our last trip to Death Valley, there
in the desert, it became totally obnoxious.
After restarting, it always ran fine for a time.
Btw, it has a new AFM.
It never does it in Washington state, where we
live, or in Oregon. So it's hard to diagnose the problem.
Could it be the oxygenated gasoline in California,
with the mtbe additive?
Harald
Take a vanagon trip, visit my website:
http://www.geocities.com/harald_nancy/
'90 westy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven Johnson" <sjohnso2000@YAHOO.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2001 11:42 AM
Subject: Re: 50 cents to fix the AFM


> I think I can speak for the vanagons sold in 1990 -
> 1991.  Yes, they had the hesitation problem as well.
> After installing the titanium cap.  The problem is
> practically gone.  I say "practically" because in
> the Nevada high desert on I-80 I swear I could feel
> it trying to hesitate and my wife did as well when
> she was driving.  Not as bad as it had before the
> cap. fix, but it seemed like it was trying to.  I
> don't
> know what it is about Nevada and my van but every time
> I drove through there I'd have hesitation problems.
> I drove all around the country 2 years ago and never
> had it occur until I came back through Nevada again..
>
> For those of you that have done the cap. fix and still
> have problems,  you need to check other possibilities
> like the air intake boot from the air cleaner to the
> throttle valve body.  Mine was loose and gave a
> similar
> symptom.  But there are other possibilities that give
> the same symptoms I'm sure.  Bad timing, vacuum leaks,
> bad spark plugs, bad plug wires and many other ways
> for this problem to rear it's ugly head.  The specific
> hesitation problem that the cap. fixes has to do with
> the AFM picking up bad information from vibrations and
> thus sending the mis-information to the control box.
> This will eventually send the control box into a
> default mode and the van will loose power but idle
> fine.  I've only experienced this on long trips of
> two hours or more.  If you are having this problem
> occur in one hour or less, it's probably something
> else.  I would start with a tune-up and check all
> wiring and go from there.  If everything else failed
> I'd start thinking about sending the control box to
> Darrell Boeler to be exchanged/or repaired....
>
> (Sorry Darrel, but you're still the best resource in
> this area...)
>
> My $.02...
>
> Steven
> '86 Transporter
> '90 Westy
> '86 Nissan "midnight blue" Sentra (wife's car)