Date:         Sun, 10 Mar 2002 05:56:35 EST
Reply-To:     Finrun@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Finn Runyon <Finrun@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Fuel Injection Wire Harness Meltdown!
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

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