Date:         Mon, 20 Aug 2001 11:45:52 -0600
Reply-To:     Blake Thornton <thornton@MATH.UTAH.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Blake Thornton <thornton@MATH.UTAH.EDU>
Subject:      Sensors, rough running and problems
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Well, my 84 van just made a 3700 mile trip (longest I've taken it on) and
it went fairly well.  The trip was basically Salt Lake City to Kentucky
and back.

I had a couple of problems though that I could use some help on:

-------------

Problem 1:

It had a rough idle the whole trip.  I thought I had this fixed by
replacing the distributor (hall sensor problem), adjusting the timing and
replacing the temperature sensors.  These things helped (a lot) but didn't
completely solved the problem.  Not too sure what else to try.

-----------

Problem 2:


It flooded one morning and wouldn't start.  I played with the blue
temperature and disconnected it and it started up.  I let it idle for a
while with the sensor disconnected and it finally idled high, but the idle
wasn't rough any more.

I then replaced my temperature sensor (it was nearly new) with a
replacement I had.  It didn't change anything so I assume the problem is
not the sensor.

-----------------

Problem 3:

Driving from Utah to Kentucky, the van ran great.  On flat stretches I
took it about 70 MPH (my girlfriend went about 75) and up hills it still
went at least 55-60 without pushing it too much.

On the trip back, in western Nebraska the van just didn't have any
power.  On flat sections, it would only go 50-55.  On hills, it would go
40MPH.

I played around with a couple things in Cheyanne but couldn't find any
problems.  I unplugged the O2 sensor and that made no noticable change.
I unscrewed the O2 sensor thinking the CAT might be plugged and that
didn't do anything but make a lot of noise.

I started thinking I would need to check the compression of the cylinders
(I have never done this).  I thought that something bad might be going on
in the engine but that was the only idea I had.

We made it home, but it was slow going through Wyoming.

Any ideas????

-------------------

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Blake
84 Westy
SLC, UT