Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2003 10:46:14 -0500
Reply-To: Kenneth Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Kenneth Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Subject: Re: Have you ever replace your heads??!!
In-Reply-To: <20031202190007.10077.qmail@web40802.mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Here are possible causes for the scenerio you discribe:
Faulty relay for ECU power (I have had them be intermittantly bad
before)
Bad wiring to hall sender in distributor (could be causing intermittant
cutting out, wiggling wires while van is running should cause the
problem to occur).
ECU has internal problem (they get hot and had bad solder joints from
the factory on certain joints. These crack from the heat and can cause
the intermittant cutting out problem which will get worse over time and
eventually leave you). The only real way to troubleshoot the ECU to
know 100% that it is the problem is to put in another known good ECU
from a 2.1l Vanagon and drive the van. If it still does it then it
can't be the ECU, if it doesn't then you have found the culprit. There
is no other way to test troubleshoot this problem other than testing
everything else and showing it is good. Then the Bentley concludes you
must have a faulty ECU. Swapping in a known good ECU is so much quicker
and easier. These do go bad quite often (again bad solder joints from
the factory, more heat because they incorporated the ignition module
into the the ECU and then jammed it under the rear seat with no
ventilation = ECUs more prone to failure than most).
Let me know if you need help with this problem. We usually stock
rebuilt ECUs for $250 and have hall sensor, and relays in stock as well.
Thanks,
Ken Wilford
John 3:16
http://www.vanagain.com
http://www.strictlyvwauctions.com
Phone: (856)-327-4936
Fax: (856)-327-2242
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf
Of Peter Igo
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 2:00 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Have you ever replace your heads??!!
Dear fellow Vanagon owners,
Have you ever replace your heads??!! I wanted to
know what your symptoms were before you replaced
them??? Were you simply having some coolant leak off
the engine?? was your coolant resevoir low?? Or were
you having "missing" problems?? or power failure??
My symptom is that the engine is "missing"
intermittantly. I can drive it for 30 min and it may
not "miss" once, but then I might just drive around
the block and it might "miss" once or twenty times.
I want to make sure I am using the correct
termonology here: when i say "missing" I mean that I
will be driving my '87 VW vanagon Syncro along, at any
speed, everything is going smoothly, and then there is
an instantaneous loss of power, just for about a
quarter of a second. The whole van "shutters" for an
instant, then its back to driving smoothly, except
that this effect may happen repeatedly. And I think
if I put in the clutch and look at the guage, that the
rpm's drop way down almost to nothing when it
"misses". It may be at that point that the only thing
that keeps the van going is its momentum, which
essentially "roll starts" the engine back on again??
(not, when the cluch is in tho, I mean when its out).
I have had a small amount of coolant leakege for
several years, but only minor. This missing just
started recently.
I took the van to a vw repair shop here and he
flatly said that i needed new heads, and that would be
$1800. I want to make sure it is the heads, before I
replace them.
I can get a whole new rebuilt engine for $1800,
(plus installation). I would rather do that, but I
first want to make sure it is the heads??
If its really an electrical problem, for example,
replacing the engine won't do a bit of good!
Thanks for any responses,
Peter '87 VW vanagon Syncro 110K
Peter@santafe-websitedesign.com
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