Date:         Sun, 1 Jul 2001 20:49:29 -0500
Reply-To:     Larry Alofs <lalofs@ENTERACT.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Larry Alofs <lalofs@ENTERACT.COM>
Subject:      Re: bad rotor
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Darrell Boehler wrote:

> Hi Volks,
>      Thought some of you might be interested in seeing a rotor that was obviously on an engine upon which tune up items have been
> neglected. My 2.1L double cab was still running pretty well, though mileage was dropping off and it would pop loudly out the muffler
> on occasion when cold.  You will notice the rotor is about a cm shorter than a good one.  Don't know how many times I have told
> fellow vanagon owners to check tune up items and grounds.
>    http://www.loam.org/vw/Pictures/images/GoodRotorBadRotor.jpg
>
> Darrell

Amazing picture!

Had a rotor problem 2 days ago.  This was with my daughter's Saab, but the parts seemed to be Bosch, so it could happen to us.
  About 3 blocks from home, the car started to sputter and then died completely within about half a block.  Would not fire at all when
trying to restart.  We towed it home with my GL (Vanagon content), and started the usual questions of  "Is there spark; is there fuel?
  After a fruitless search for the fuel pump relay (the Saab Bentley is even more misleading than the Vanagon one) and a few other dead
ends we found that there was no spark at the ends of the spark plug wires even tho there was plenty of spark from the coil wire.
Everything about the dist cap and rotor looked fine.  The book said that the resistance of the rotor was supposed to be 1000 ohms.
Checked it with two different meters and they both said it was close to 1000.
  We connected one end of the rotor to the wire from the coil and the other end to a spark plug wire and cranked the engine.  It fired
irregularly showing that the rotor was conducting the high voltage just fine!
  Scratched my head and said a few bad words about Swedish cars and the general perversity of nature. Finally I said the cap or the
rotor have to bad somehow and we have to try new ones.  Since it was 6 pm and of course she *had* to have the car in the morning, I made
about four calls and found the parts at a Pep Boys.  Drove over in Vinnie to get them, put them in, and the car ran fine.
  In retrospect I believe that the spark was jumping to ground thru the inside of the rotor to the rotating shaft on which it mounts.
There is no visible flaw and the low voltage used by an ohmmeter doesn't detect it either, but the insulating properties of the material
must have broken down just enough for some reason.  I have never run into this before in forty years of fooling with these machines.

Larry A.   Chicago

91 GL:  Vinnie
94 Golf:   Minnie
88 Jetta:   Jane  (for sale)
90 Saab 900S 16valve:   Svetlana