Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 10:06:00 -0700
Reply-To: Anthony Hecht <lists@SLAPNOSE.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Anthony Hecht <lists@SLAPNOSE.COM>
Subject: Buckin' Like a Bronco, Stalling
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Hi everybody,
So, we've been on the road here for about 7 months, and the old girl ('80
Westy) is miraculously still running. Well, let me qualify that.
She was still running quite well until about a week ago.
Cruising up yet another red rock hill in southern Utah, downshifting from
fourth to third, the car started to buck, like the engine was cutting out,
coming back cutting out coming back, in rapid succession. This lasted a few
seconds, then stopped. Since then it's been happening more and more often,
and getting worse, until the car would completely cut out when we came to a
stop, no idling.
The thing is, this is intermittent. For long stretches things would be fine,
and then all of a sudden it was like we were being rammed from behind, or
the car was trying to jump off the road and do a somersault, tail over head.
Some feathering of the gas seems to make it settle down, usually, but not
always. The other thing is that it happens only after the car has warmed up.
When we first start in the morning, or after a couple hour stop, it idles
fine and runs pretty well for about 20 minutes or so, then the agony starts
back up.
Things we've already done: New cap, rotor, points, timing adjusted, new
plugs, air filter. One look at the points and I thought this was the
problem, they were all burned up. After this tune-up, she ran great for a
while, and we celebrated this red herring with high-fives and huge sighs of
relief. But then, 20-30 minutes later, it was at it again and progressively
got worse, until we were stalling at a stop again.
When we stall at a stop, it will start again after about 5 or 10 minutes,
but not right away.
And here's my final curveball: The muffler is looser than it's ever been, it
seems to have broken between the converter and the muffler body, so the
whole cylinder can rotate downward (so the tailpipe points toward the ground
and not toward the people losing their minds in the cars behind us). I don't
know if this could cause such dramatic problems, but thought I'd mention it.
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. We're in Las Vegas, it's hot, and
we're starting to think the odds are against our bid to gamble away our
woes.
(I realize we're air-cooled, and I apologize for it, but this list has
historically been so helpful...)
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Anthony Hecht & Liz Jones
'80 Westy "Badunkadunk"
Somewhere Between Virginia and Tuesday
http://travelinvan.com
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