Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 02:36:40 -0400
Reply-To: Germain <reglys@SYMPATICO.CA>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Germain <reglys@SYMPATICO.CA>
Subject: Re: New Vanagon Owner!
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Welcome in the club Khyle
Owning a Westfalia is a real project but we have to love our "Westies" to
care so much about it.
Sorry I cannot help you on your problem. It looks very strange for me. Could
it be the mass air flow? I remember when I had a problem on the mass airflow
of my 1993 Sentra. Suddenly I was loosing power and when I let the engine to
cool down I could restart the car and drive for 1 hour without any problem.
Good luck
Germain
----- Original Message -----
From: "Khyle Hamilton" <winged@TIGERDEN.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, June 11, 2004 12:02 AM
Subject: New Vanagon Owner!
> Hey, everyone! I just bought an '85 Vanagon about a month ago from a shop
> in Virginia called "Air Cooled Recycling Unlimited"... 255k miles or so on
> it, with (he said) about 55k on the engine since the last rebuild.
>
> Driving it from there to a friend's place in Ohio, I met several folk who
> approached me about it... and I commented to my friend, when I pulled in,
> "Whoa, I thought I was buying a van, but it's like I bought membership
> into a club!" ;)
>
> Another friend told me about this list, so I figured I'd drop in and say
> hi to y'all, and ask a question that's plaguing me a little bit:
>
> If I drive for more than about 20 to 25 minutes at a stretch, my van
> starts to lose power, almost like it's overheating. I know that the
> thermoswitch on my radiator's bad (I wired a manual switch in the cab for
> it, anyway, because I'm planning on taking it across-country and I don't
> want any inadvertent overheating as I'm climbing the Rocky Mountains
> toward Denver), but even with the switch in place and working properly I'm
> still getting the problem.
>
> Neither the temperature gauge nor the temperature warning light comes on
> while this is happening, I just lose power and have to pull off the road
> somewhere until it cools down. (25 to 45 minutes later, it starts right
> up, has no problems, full power again.)
>
> Has anyone else had this problem? Does anyone know what might be causing
> it? I'm thinking of replacing the thermostat in the water pump, but I
> don't know if it's truly heat related or if it might be something that the
> computer might be screwing up? (I have cleaned the O2 sensor with brake
> cleaner, as suggested by an ASE mechanic friend of mine, but it didn't
> make any difference.)
>
> Any insight will be gratefully appreciated -- thanks in advance!
>
> -Kyle Hamilton
>
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