Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 19:40:06 -0500
Reply-To: SpaceKommander <jboldway@COTTAGESOFT.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: SpaceKommander <jboldway@COTTAGESOFT.COM>
Subject: Idle problems on 85 westy
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hello!
(wrote this about 3 weeks ago but frogot to send)
Just read some comments on O2 sensor wire being coaxial and thought that
would solve my problem - but my 02 sensor isn't coax - just terminates with
spade plug. Anyway, It used to idle around 800 rpm which was just fine but
for the last few months it seems to idle at about 1700 rpm. Checked cable
and such - can't find problem. Any ideas?
Oh, and a comment to list members who own Vanagons and live in hot climates
- 2 days ago I was heading home and all of a sudden I was unable to shift
from 4th gear. Shifting had been hard for the past few weeks as I was
having a hard time finding 2nd from being in 3rd. Figured I just needed a
bit of lube on the linkage. Getting stuck in 4th was no fun. Limped home
and discovered plastic gimbal socket where shifter passes through floor was
all split up with little bits of plastic and me being able to move the
shifter up and down over a 4" range. I'm sure the problem was that heat and
age had caused the plastic to bite the bullet.
(nope - dead tranny - got a new one from AA transaxle - very fast service)
A few months ago my visor fell down a bit as the plastic visor retainer
broke - from the 140 degree heat the car gets inside here in Kansas even
with a window shade and the windows cracked. Hate to put the pimpmobile
gold reflective window shading on as the dark black window shades help -
but not enough. Oh well - van is gold anyway so hopefully it won't look too
bad.
Whole point of this diatribe is to warn people who live in hot climates
that they might want to shell out the $50.30 at the VW dealer to replace
every single hunk of plastic and rubber in their shifting mechanism. Cheap
insurance versus getting stuck in the middle of nowhere with a hundred
dollar towing bill . . . .
And . . . another comment - Mynd you, Moose bites Kan be pretti nasti.... -
woops - I mean the Seattle VW specific junkyard can be a treasure trove for
vanagon owners. All the stuff that you can't easily get from places like
the Bus Depot and such is very cheap. No sense trying to save a few bucks
on a part of unknown quality from a wrecked car when you can easily get a
new one but some things like the door air thingey that mounts in the rear
bottom of the driver's door along with the oval grille that is in the door
pillar. Both were missing from my Vanagon and the cost for both was a
whopping $4 total from the Seattle VW junkyard. Saw about 7-9 Vanagons
fairly complete and about as many split windows. Saw only one bay window
and a 142 Mexican whooping llamas. What gives?
Again, the VW junkyard in Seattle is a verry nice plae, you know . . . .
|