Date:         Wed, 25 Apr 2001 13:16:44 EDT
Reply-To:     Blbachman@aol.com
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Blaine Bachman <Blbachman@aol.com>
Subject:      The last six months...
Content-Type:  text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Just in case some of you are still interested, here's a 2+ year, 30+K mile report on my inline-4 engine conversion.  You may remember that I posted reports right after the Nov '98 installation and during the summer of 1999.  The kit came from Overland (now out of this aspect of the business) and was done a Foreign Aide in Albuquerque.

With this, I also restate my invitation to those of you interested in gasoline engine replacements for the untrusty Wasserboxer, to join our "Vanagon-Inline" list at YahooGroups.

This has been a problem-filled period.  Once during the summer of 2000, the car exhibited an inexplicable problem.  Again we were headed to Durango Colorado and about 2/3 the way there, the car suddenly lost power.  We stumbled along the emergency shoulder for a couple of miles with the engine barely running and it cleared itself.  Nothing further, and we completed the trip wondering if it was just a spot of bad gasoline.

At Thanksgiving, we went to Durango again.  About 50 miles into the return trip, the power loss event occurred again.  After it didn't clear up on its own, we pulled off the road, waited a minute, and restarted the car.  It would go along for another 10-15 miles and then bog down again.  This continued all the way back to Albuquerque.

No immediate problems around town, but over the next few months, the general situation gradually got worse.  Eventually the car wouldn't idle, surged at traffic lights, and performance became noticeably bad.  I replaced the pump and filter, clearing up some of the problems, but it was still running doggy.

At the shop, the technician found several wires in the engine wiring harness were melted.  This engine has that same big connector that you see on the last few years of Golf IIs.  It's an interesting item in that it has no dust cover to keep little nasties out of the back side of the connector.  While this may not be much of a problem in the Golf engine compartment, the open end of the connector points toward the front of the Vanagon.  To make matters worse, it is right in line with the bell housing slots on the automatic transmission.

We guessed that automatic transmission fluid and dirt that got into the contacts and caused a short precipitated the meltdown.  Electrical checks showed no dead shorts in other parts of the system, so the shop replaced the harness (and repositioned the connector) free of charge.

We set out on a trip to Denver in February of this year.  Just north of Santa Fe, about 70 miles from home, another loss of power.  After limping along for five miles, we turned around and nursed the car home.  This time the shop downloaded the codes from the ECU.  Result?  Replace the expensive 4-wire oxygen sensor and the water temp sensor (which I paid for this time).
The car tools around town just fine - we even make a day trip up into the mountains, with no problems.  So we set out for Denver again (it's April by now), but same spot, same problem.  This time we come right back, hop in the '86 Golf, and make the trip.

Reading the codes again indicates an intermittent connection fault with the near new (and very expensive) oxygen sensor.  The car stayed at the shop for a few days.  As it turns out, the left side motor mount had gotten soft and it appeared that some of the wiring was being occasionally pinched between the intake manifold and the frame/body.  The mount was replaced and the wiring repaired and rerouted.  At this point, the shop finally resigned itself to the fact that the ECU probably received some minor damage due to the wiring problems of the last six months.  Swapping ECUs finally proved this.  Plugs were also replaced as they (surprisingly) showed extreme wear on the grounding electrodes.

After picking up the car, I took it on a freeway-speed test drive to Grants New Mexico and back.  The weather was warm, and we bucked 20-40 MPH headwinds all the way there.  The car experienced no repeat of the problem, so I have hopes that the engine bay is now back to normal.  To its credit, the shop is holding the bill until we are both satisfied the problems are fixed.
I'm going to Durango again this weekend - we'll see!

BTW, the installation now has over 30K miles on it.  Mileage continues to hold around 20-22 MPG.