Date:         Thu, 19 Jul 2001 03:07:08 -0700
Reply-To:     Boroko <marokus@VOYAGER.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Boroko <marokus@VOYAGER.NET>
Subject:      Re: Wire leaked it's smoke
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

For those interested in the previously posted message:

>On the way home today, (luckily, about 1/2 mile from the house) I got
behind
>a large truck and started smelling a funny smell.  OF COURSE, IT HAD TO BE
>THE  TRUCK!  Well, the truck pulled off and the smell persisted.   Within a
>few hundred yards, the '87 bucked a few times and died.  I hooked up my
>Digitool (www.loam.org/vw ) to see what was going on and saw everything but
>the fuel pump.  Interestingly, the pump comes on when you turn off the key.
>Upon inspection, I found that the wire from the power steering pump switch
>had given up its life all the way through the engine compartment harness,
>taking a few others with it.

 I have repaired the harness and tracked it back to the Power Steering
pressure switch.  It seems that switch had an internal short to ground.  The
wire feeding it is not too big (0.5) and couldn't manage to completely kill
the battery before giving up its function as a current carrier.  As I got
the harness disected, I found that VW used a sort of inline splice to
connect a bunch of wires of differing guages together just after the power
relay.  That probably saved the rest of the harness as the smaller wire let
go before the relay wiring got too hot.  As it was, the burnt wire melted
the harness from the switch back to the relay box in the engine compartment.
Repair was accomplished with "Scotch Kote" and electrical tape.  It has been
running now for a week and seems OK.  I'm trying to figure out why it took
out the ECU.  Luckily, I have spares, but it is disappointing that it took
out my "chipped" 022d.
I'm investigating the possibility of fusing the wiring near the power relay
in my two current vans to preclude similar problems.  The power feeding the
relay goes to: the injectors, the fuel pump, the ECU, and the o2 heater.
With that kind of loading, I doubt that I can get the fuse to be small
enough to be of any use.  Still pondering...

I'm curious if any others have had failures in this area?  I know of one
other van that had a  wiring problem, but don't know the root cause.

Mark