Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 11:07:10 -0400
Reply-To: Jim Henry <jhenry@JCHGIS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jim Henry <jhenry@JCHGIS.COM>
Organization: JCH GeoInfo Solutions
Subject: Re: problem(s) on the road, plus major good samaritan
In-Reply-To: <3u3gb7$14epjj@smtp05.mrf.mail.rcn.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Joy,
I think connecting the o2 sensor should be the first order of business, as
this will contribute to running rich and related uglies. You should notice
an improvement in gas mileage immediately, though this may not be the whole
problem. Good luck, hope that this sorts things out some for you.
Jim Henry
Durham, NC
84 westy
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM]
> On Behalf Of Joy Hecht
> Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 1:22 AM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: problem(s) on the road, plus major good samaritan
>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm outside Indianapolis, having a problem. My engine seems
> to occasionally miss a beat or two (or twenty), slows down,
> tach drops - then it catches again and has a little spurt of
> power and is fine for a while. Mostly this is only just
> noticeable, but I definitely do notice it.
>
> And it's running rich, putting out lots of soot and a trace
> of smoke, and gas mileage has just plummeted to 11 mpg.
>
> There's a mechanic listed on Larry's site in Indianapolis, so
> I figure I'll head there tomorrow. But I'm interested in
> ideas about the cause of the problem. This once happened
> before, much worse, and there were gazillions of theories as
> to what was wrong (it turned out to be a mix of a couple of them).
>
> Also, if it's something that one could fix (e.g. cleaning out
> filter on fuel pump, which once caused similar problems, or
> something else easy), and if there's anyone near Indianapolis
> who might be willing to help, I'd be delighted to hear from
> you! I'm en route to Buses by the Beach, but I don't think I
> want to wait on this till I get there to deal with this, even
> though the idea of dozens of vanagonauts in one place makes
> it tempting.
>
> My O2 sensor is not connected. Ken just installed new
> exhaust pipes around 500 miles ago and said I should wait 500
> miles before reconnecting it. I tried to do that this
> evening, but can't figure out what the two dangling wires
> should connect to! There doesn't seem to be anything
> unconnected aside from the two dangling wires. Where is it?
>
>
> And now for the good Samaritan story! (Skip to the end if
> you're bored.) I pulled into a rest stop thirty miles east
> of here, and on walking back to my van I realized I was
> leaking coolant, rather rapidly. A bit of crawling under the
> van showed exactly where it was coming from, a steady skinny
> stream coming from where the narrow hose bringing coolant
> back from the heat exchanger is clamped on (if I'm reading
> the Bentley diagram correctly).
> Looked like a little chunk of rubber had come off the end of
> the hose, making a pinhole where the coolant was flowing out.
>
> So I mulled this over and went into the rest stop to ask the
> guy working there whether anyone would have a fit if I stayed
> the night, despite the signs saying it wasn't allowed. He
> said no, they wouldn't, and offered to look at my coolant leak.
>
> Well, to make a long story short - three hours later, after
> getting stuck under my van (he wasn't small), getting
> showered with quite warm coolant, and one trip down the road
> to buy a new hose clamp, he had fixed my coolant leak. He
> parried my thanks, and refused my offer of money, but did
> accept my offer to write a letter for his supervisors about
> how nice and helpful and generous he was. Then when I went
> to drive out of the rest stop at long last, it turned out
> we'd disconnected a wire and the oil pressure buzzer kept
> coming on. So back out he came, found a tool in his truck to
> strip the end of the wire and reconnect it, and - whew! - the
> buzzer went off.
>
> After that we sat down and talked about all sorts of things
> (well, okay, mostly he tried to convert me), till his
> replacement came on at 11:00. At which point I came down the
> road to the Flying J outside Indianapolis where I'm spending
> the night. (And where I filled my tank and realized how bad
> my gas mileage now is!)
>
> When I ask myself why I'm still driving a van that breaks
> down constantly, even when it's just had nine weeks of TLC in
> Millville with Ken and was purring like a well-fed cat when I
> left there, well, it's 'cause I meet people like John in the
> rest stop who don't know me from a hole in the ground, but
> happily fix my coolant leak!
>
>
> So, if you've gotten through all this, I'd like to hear
> thoughts about why I might be running rich, missing, and
> wasting so much gas.
>
>
>
> Joy
>
>
> *******************************************************************
> Joy Hecht
> and Matilda, 1989 Burgundy Vanagon
>
> email: jhecht@alum.mit.edu
> telephone: 1-202-494-1162
> for musings about life and the vanadventures:
> http://users.rcn.com/jhecht/gypsy
>
> *******************************************************************
>
| 
