Date:         Mon, 11 Mar 2002 08:55:23 -0800
Reply-To:     gary hradek <hradek@YAHOO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         gary hradek <hradek@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      Fuel Injection Wire Harness Meltdown!
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Rich,
     Very useful information but I should like to add
two things.   A relay is in fact a fuse, 15 -20 amps
can take it out.   Do you know where that relay is?
Is it possible Finn did everything right but that
somehow the hot wire came in contact with the coax
ground going back to the ecu?   Finn Please keep us
posted as to your final solution.
        regards gary
Date:    Sun, 10 Mar 2002 05:56:35 EST
From:    Finn Runyon <Finrun@AOL.COM>
Subject: Fuel Injection Wire Harness Meltdown!

It seems looking in depth at my Bently, that the
harness on the fuel
injection,AFC system is history.  I am very much at a
loss as to why
this
happened. To recap, I was replacing the oxygen sensor
with a generic
from the
Bus Depot.  I very carefully soldered and taped the O2
sensor to the
existing
harness. I did have difficulty removing the old sensor
from the cat,
but once
out, the new one installed easily.  The bus ran great
without the
sensor
plugged in.  It would not start with in connected.  I
unplugged the
sensor
and it fired right up, albeit running a bit rough this
time.  I
reconnected
it and tried starting it again, it started, and my son
who was near by
yelled, "Dad there is fire!"  I shut the van off and
quickly ran to the
rear
and blew the fire out!  Seems that all the insulation
on the O2 harness
is
melted off, the plug connector for the 2 white wires
is melted
together, as
is the insulation of the wires for the left bank of
injectors.  It was
getting dark as this was all happening so to be honest
I have not cut
back
the sheath on the wire loom to see how far the
meltdown goes?

Can any one come up with a logical explanation for
what has happened?
In
addition to the harness would a short of this sort
have taken out the
control
unit and other electronics?  Could the O2 sensor been
defective in some
way
to have caused this?  I have had my head handed to me
by my family as
we are
to leave for our yearly trip south to the pan handle
of FL on Friday.
Please, can anyone help???
Finn Runyon
87 Westy

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

Date:    Sun, 10 Mar 2002 07:24:31 EST
From:    Rico Sapolich <JKrevnov@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: FI Wire Harness Meltdown/COME ON ! LET'S
HELP THIS GUY

Finn,

My heart goes out to you for I have been in a similar
situation more
than
once.  This is a tough one.  There are 3 conductors of
the wiring
harness
connected to the OXS: green (shielded), white and
brown.  The green is
the
signal to the ECU and should be connected to the black
lead of your
generic
OXS.  The white is the power supply for the resistive
heating element
of the
OXS and should be connected a white lead of the OXS.
The brown is the
ground
for the heating element and should be connected to the
other white lead
of
the OXS.  I didn't realize it was possible, but it
sounds like you took
the
white conductor of the harness to ground through the
OXS.

1/ Disconnect all the conductors to the OXS and
briefly see how it
runs.
2/ Check your wiring to see if you crossed the
conductors.
3/ Check that either white lead of the OXS is not
shorted to the body
of the
OXS and that there is resistance between them.
4/ The white conductor from the harness is a real
ballbuster because it
comes
from a node WITHIN the wiring harness to which, by my
count, 8
conductors are
terminated.  Also, it is fed directly from the battery
through a relay.
In
other words, it is unfused.  Thank you VW!  Short of
replacing the
wiring
harness, you will have to at least strip the sheath
back to assess the
extent
of the damage.  Then, the relay and its wiring has to
be checked.
5/ If, as I suspect, you swapped the leads to the OXS,
you will have to
determine if the ECU was hardy enough for its input to
be taken to
ground
through the few Kohms of the OXS heater.

Rich


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