Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 07:26:16 -0800
Reply-To: Shawn Wright <swright@ZUIKO.SLS.BC.CA>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Shawn Wright <swright@ZUIKO.SLS.BC.CA>
Subject: Re: '88 stalling, lurching problems increasing
In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20030325204139.00a16620@mail.gct21.net>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Steve,
Thanks, but I forgot to mention that I did the capacitor trick several years ago.
At the time the problem was so infrequent that it was difficult to tell if the fix
had any effect. (I should mention that my problem until recently has been very
intermittent, and has never resulted in the van dying while in motion, only a
very rare stalling, but it always started right up again. We often camp in places
several hours of rough road from the nearest services and it's never been a
concern... until now.) Before that, I had tried 'adjusting' the wiper armature
that contacts the conductive circuit board inside the mass airflow sensor box,
and recall the board was quite worn. Now I'm wondering if perhaps it is just
plain worn out and sending occasional garbage to the ECU? The van has
371k km on it - does anyone know how long the air flow sensor lasts,
especially the circuit board?
ps: Of course, the only guaranteed solution to the possible electrical gremlins in my
Vanagon lies under the hood of my Jetta TD, but I doubt that a TD rebuild & swap is
going to happen before Easter... :-(
On 25 Mar 2003 at 20:58, laurasdog@weirdstuffwemake.co wrote:
> Shawn,
> I've had a possibly similar experience with our '86 westy.
>
> Have you tried this yet?
> http://www.geocities.com/harald_nancy/intermitt._syndrome.htm
> I soldered a capacitor in mine this morning, but it's too soon to
> tell if it's made any difference yet, although it did make a 250
> mile trip today with no problem.
>
> As a first line of troubleshooting I was thinking about an electric
> fuel pressure gauge mounted on the dash so I can see if the
> pressure goes away when the stalling occurs....
>
> Good luck!
>
> Steve
>
> At 08:16 PM 3/25/2003, you wrote:
> >Since the untimely illness (read rust) of our faithful Jetta TD, our
> >normally summer-
> >use-only Westy has been put into full kid hauling service for the past 6
> >weeks or so. I
> >noticed the fairly intermittent miss that I've seen off & on for years
> >seemed to have
> >become worse since last year, and suspecting water in the fuel, I tried a
> >few doses of
> >gas line af. It seemed to have little effect, and the problem has now
> >turned into fairly
> >regular stalling soon after a cold start, soon after a warm start (ie:
> >sitting 20-30
> >minutes after a long drive), plus the very occasional bucking has now
> >become much
> >more common.
> >I just read through sec24 of the Bentley, but suspect the problem may lie
> >in the
> >ignition section28 referred to at the end of sec24.
> >Can anyone shed some light on what are the most common causes of the symptoms
> >I'm seeing? Are the Bentley meter tests likely to reveal anything? It
> >seems they
> >should only reveal a dead sensor or circuit, where what I'm seeing is more
> >intermittent, so I'm afraid a "best guess" approach might be needed.
> >
> >We have a trip planned at Easter into the interior, so I'd rather have
> >this fixed before
> >then...
> >
> >Thanks :-)
> >
> >Shawn Wright, I.T. Manager
> >Shawnigan Lake School
> >swright@SLS.bc.ca
> >http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright
> >http://www.sls.bc.ca
>
>
Shawn Wright, I.T. Manager
Shawnigan Lake School
swright@SLS.bc.ca
http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright
http://www.sls.bc.ca
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