Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 17:50:54 -0500
Reply-To: Kenneth Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Kenneth Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Subject: Re: Engine dies, now which distributor?? (long winded)
In-Reply-To: <02ab01c4ffd2$8059cb80$6001a8c0@C424264A>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
In my opinion your problem is not the hall sensor. When it goes it goes
dead and that is it. No restarts. Your problem is probably the ECU.
If you have someone with a 86-91 2.1l that is running good near you try
swapping in there ECU to your van. I bet it fixes your problem. That
is the only way to troubleshoot them as they have no way of really bench
testing them. I have rebuilt ECUs for $250 plus $100 core in stock if
you find you need one.
Thanks,
Ken Wilford
John 3:16
http://www.vanagain.com
http://www.strictlyvwauctions.com
http://www.eurovan.org
http://www.vwcabrio.org
Phone: (856)-327-4936
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-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf
Of Don in North Carolina
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2005 11:02 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Engine dies, now which distributor?? (long winded)
Hello all!
Here is my sad tale of woe:
The van - 1988 Vanagon GL
The symptoms - While driving, engine would cut out / die for a second,
tachometer immediately goes to 0. Looked around in engine bay, didn't
find anything. Figured I would live with it unless it got worse. Well,
it got worse - while driving at ~55 MPH, engine dies and stays dead.
Coast off the road, try to restart - cranks over but no joy. Go back,
look around the engine compartment, wiggle wires (a technical specialty
of mine) try to restart, cranks but no start. Look in the back again,
still don't see anything, try to start - starts right up!, runs like
nothing had ever happened. Drive home, runs fine, no issues. Do a
search on the archives, find a comment from Joy about her issues and how
they had found the plug loose going to the black box (CDI box above coil
on left hand side of engine bay). Push on my plug, moves about 1/8 inch
and feel a click - Ah hah says I! Next few days uneventful, van runs
well and all seems fine (you can see what's coming, can't you?). Out on
a drive, speed about 45 - engine dies, tachometer goes to 0. This time
it would not start, and after ~45 minutes of trying battery is low
enough that it obviously isn't going to start. Tow home (thanks AAA+).
Pull battery and charge. Next morning, put battery back in van (battery
is ~8 months old, BTW), on second attempt, van starts and runs fine.
Intermittent problems, the bane of troubleshooters everywhere!
The solution (hopefully) - looked in archives (I used different keywords
this time), found several mentions of the same type of issue and all
were reported to be due to a defective Hall Effect sensor in the
distributor. Now I know that the sensor is available separately, but I
am planning to replace the complete distributor (piece of mind issue).
The complete distributor is about $70 more than the sensor itself (not
counting the new o-rings and anything else you find wrong when working
on the distributor).
The new problem - there are at least three different part numbers listed
for the distributor: 0.986.237.639, 0237.520.046 and 025.905.205AG. It
appears that the last two numbers may be for the 90-91 models. I know
that the distributor caps and rotors are different for the 90-91 models,
but are the distributors still interchangeable with the old ones - in
other words, are the specs the same and will the hall effect plug fit?
What did they change, to "improve" the newer distributors?
TIA,
Don in Reidsville, NC
1987 Vanagon GL Syncro (Suzie) - For Sale!
1988 Vanagon GL (Sylvia)
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