Date:         Fri, 20 Dec 2002 23:25:05 -0500
Reply-To:     Marc Perdue <marcperdue@ADELPHIA.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Marc Perdue <marcperdue@ADELPHIA.NET>
Subject:      Yet another update...Toasty's back!!
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Well, it only took them four days, and they had their oldest technician
working on it, but he was going around scratching his head trying to
figure out why my van died and coming up with nothing.  You will recall
that I was tinkering with it last weekend trying to figure out why the
idle was strange, too low when cold, up and down most of the time, too
high after driving a while, and it seemed to be running rich, mileage
was down to 14 from 16 or 17.  The shop replaced the vacuum hose to the
fuel pressure regulator and, though unrelated, replaced the worn hose
between the coolant expansion tank and the overflow tank.  They were
going to order the hose to the oil breather but found out that they'd
have to order 16 feet of hose!  So I told them I'd get that at AutoZone
or something.  The van had spark but the plugs were badly fouled, thus
confirming my suspicion that it was running rich, so they replaced the
spark plugs.  It was also getting fuel, but it still wouldn't start.  As
their senior technician was standing there scratching his head, one of
the other technicians walked up, grabbed the distributor and moved it up
and down a couple of times.  Yep, somehow the distributor had come loose
and jumped timing!  They reset it and the van started right up.  Oy vey!

So I've decided that I'm going to try and find an old Toyota Corolla
that my wife can use for a daily driver (she loves Toyotas), I'm going
to drive the new Accord (I love Hondas), and I'm going to be doing all
the work on my van myself from now on.  The van is idling better, but
it's still not quite right, so I'll be delving into that more deeply
after the holidays.  I'll let you all know what the solution(s) to that
wind up being.

Thanks for all your great help and have a great holiday everyone!!!
Marc Perdue