Date:         Sun, 5 Aug 2001 09:08:06 -0700
Reply-To:     CalvinBruce <zippydoodah@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         CalvinBruce <zippydoodah@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Re: '84 California water-cooled fuel probs
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

My experience: Due to the "Rube Goldberg" fuel tank setup on my '85
Westy,of course, the tank lines cracked, there were poor connections
to the tank line seats and the tank leaked. Well, where gas is
leaking out on a fill up at the pump, (smell, ugh), water, debris got
in and the tank rusted, collected debris, etc. I had this
intermittent fuel supply problem for some time. Changed filters, fuel
pump, etc. until I finally had the tank replaced--fixed the problem.
So if your tank leaks at all while filling it full, if you smell gas
fumes on fill up, you may have to address that problem...

Calvin







>
>
>Date:    Sat, 4 Aug 2001 00:07:59 EDT
>From:    Jeff Tribble <SeabornProduct@AOL.COM>
>Subject: '84 California water-cooled fuel probs
>
>Sorry for the long message, but I've got to get all this out now that it's
>fresh in my head.  I've searched the archives to no avail:
>
>I've had intermittent fuel delivery problems for 3 years now.  Once I
>replaced the fuel pump (which had actually failed) and everything was fine.
>Then the pump failed again, so I put a filter between the tank and the pump
>(on California water-cooled's, the fuel filter is between the pump and the
>engine... seems odd).  I still get intermittent stalls and no-starts.  I've
>even had it towed to a mechanic, only to find it starts right up again when
>the tow truck dropped me off - then the mechanic really coulnd't find
>anything wrong.
>
>Most recently (like an hour ago!) it stalled in rushhour traffic and had it
>towed to a thoughtful mechanic.  Luckily, it did NOT start after being
>dropped.  This is what we found: good spark, fuel pump fine.  Here's the
>wierd part: he pulled a fuel injection connection off (the wires from the
>computer to the injector) and put on one of those small bulb testers (which
>lit-up fine).  Then he reconnected to the injector and it started up!  Then
>we turned it off and waited about 5 minutes and then it failed to start
>again!  So he tried the same trick: pulled off one of the injector
>connections, tested it and reconnected it: it started fine!  He's baffled,
>I'm baffled.  He thinks "maybe" the computer, but he's really pretty baffled.
>
>
>I took the chance on driving it home and it made it all the way.  I rarely
>rev the engine very high, so I thought I'd try that to see if maybe it just
>needed a good high voltage charge.  Oddly, at high RPMs the engine sort of
>sputtered a bit (like not good, clean acceleration).  After doing this a few
>times (about 5-10 good revs in both 2nd and 3rd gear), the acceleration
>became clean and fine.  I"d really like to keep this "bus" but it's kind of
>frustrating having to be careful about carrying stuff around (like music
>instruments) on the off-chance it's just going to die again.
>
>I once heard of a friend's BMW that had a similar problem (wierd intermittent
>stalls) for like 5 years, and it just took someone who REALLY knew how to
>give it a good tune-up to  solve the problem...
>
>Any ideas?
>
>Jeff T.
>
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