Date:         Sat, 3 May 2003 20:18:19 -0700
Reply-To:     laurasdog@WEIRDSTUFFWEMAKE.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Steve Delanty <laurasdog@WEIRDSTUFFWEMAKE.COM>
Subject:      Re: Strange loss of Power 91 Vanagon
In-Reply-To:  <006a01c311dd$49e513a0$e2d6df40@61yck01>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

Shannon wrote:
>Went on a drive today.. drove about 2 hours and while going up a hill I
>lost power.  The engine was running, but I had no response when I stepped
>on the gas.  I thought I broke the Throttle cable, but after a quick
>inspection I found that it wasn't the case.  After about 5 min I tried it
>again and everything was back to normal..  I drove over 150 miles back
>home with no problems..  Is this the "Vanagon Syndrome"?

Yes, that sounds very much like V.S.

 >any insight would be appreciated..

My advice?
Grounds, grounds, grounds!

Before you spend money and/or time
on anything else, check all the electrical
grounds for the engine.
The places that need to be looked at are:
The 2 braided ground straps from the engine to
chassis. One of them connects from the left cylinder
head to a point in the engine compartment. The other
one is underneath the car, from the very front of the
transmission to the chassis.
Also check where the cluster of brown wires grounds
to the left side of the engine compartment (near where
the braided ground strap connects. And check the
ground point on the cylinder head, near the intake manifold
and under the AC compressor. There should be a
brown wire that grounds there.

Don't just LOOK at these places, but pull them apart
and clean them with a little fine sand paper and
reassemble them and make sure the bolts/nuts/whatever
that holds them tightens properly. Make sure the wires
are tight in the lugs, and not all frayed at the ends.
Fix as required.

Look though the archives... most of the cases of V.S. that
have been cured have been cured by finding *bad grounds*
and repairing them. The digifant FI system seems very
susceptible to poor grounding, especially on the O2 sensor.

Once you've THOROUGHLY checked all the grounds
if you still have trouble *double check them again*!

Only once you are 150% certain that the trouble is not
caused by bad grounds, then you can begin the expensive
ritual of replacing parts...

I finally cured my Westy of  V.S. Search the archives
from 4/2/2003 to 4/10/2003 for my thoughts on the problem.
I wrote quite a bit about it that week....

To sum it all up again: Grounds, grounds, grounds!

Happy motoring
Steve
'86 Westy