Date:         Mon, 18 Mar 2002 13:43:16 EST
Reply-To:     KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         KENWILFY@AOL.COM
Subject:      Re: Help Vanagon stuck in Chico, CA
Comments: To: blakeheinlein@hotmail.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

Hope you are not still stuck but if you are here is what has happened:
One or more of your push rods is not centered in the hydraulic lifters
properly.  This is holding your valves open to the point where you are
getting no compression.

Try to loosen your push rod adjusting screws when the engine is on TDC for
each cylinder.  You will find that on one or two of the valves on each
cylinder you will be able to adjust the screw all the way and the rocker arm
is still compressing the valve.  This is because the push rod is not centered
properly in the lifter.  Loosen the rocker assembly enough so that you can
move the push rods to where they need to be (centered in the lifter).
Retighten the rocker arm assembly.  You should now have some slack between
the rocker arm and the push rod and be able to adjust the screws in several
turns before they will actually touch the end of the valve.  I would just
adjust the valves to zero lash (the adjuster screws just touching the end of
the valve).  Do this on all four cylinders.  Now she will crank up and run
great.

I have had this happen to me more than a couple of times before I caught on.
Even bought a van one time that the guy had just put new head gaskets on and
couldn't get it to run.  A few minutes of getting the push rods centered and
she was running like a champ.   Hope this helps.

Thanks,
Ken Wilford
John 3:16
http://www.vanagain.com
Phone: (856)-765-1583
Fax: (856)-327-2242