Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:07:28 -0500
Reply-To: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: noob already in trouble
In-Reply-To: <20071126182730.j5tk4o540k8oscko@webmail.uoguelph.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
You have the dreaded O2 sensor problem. Either a bad sensor, wirng, or a
bad ground connection somewhere. Since it is an 87, the ground or chassis
reference for the O2 sensor is in the same harness as the hall sensor in
the distributor. The factory thought a good place to connect this would be
above the plastic (?) oil breather tower. See if there is a small brown
wire connected there. If so move it to another all metal connection point.
I usually use one of the screws holding the fuel pressure regulator to the
manifold. Also check the condition of all those ground wires on the left
of the engine compartment and under the AC compressor. If there is
corrosion on the wires, replace the crimp terminals with self sealing
types to stop further oxidation of the wires.
Dennis
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
James Reed-Jones
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 6:28 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: noob already in trouble
Hey all,
So I have been meaning to introduce myself (instead of just lurking)
and since I have had my first official van disaster I thought I would
kill two birds with one stone.
3 months ago my wife and I bought an 87 westy and have been in love
with it ever since. I just recently found out about this list and
subscribed - let me tell you this place has been so useful already! (I
cant believe the oil filler extends!)
All that being said - I had my first disaster with the van today. I
was out picking my wife up and I started loosing power and couldn't
keep the RPMs up above 1200. It was like I was trying to start in the
highest gear. The weird thing though is that it would do it even when
I put it in neutral. I kept having to pull over and restart the
engine. This would solve the problem for anywhere between a few blocks
to not at all. The one thing that I did do to limp it home was that
every time I lost power I would stomp the pedal which seemed to give
me back a burst of power and doing that I was able to rocket myself
along with the occasional boosts of speed.
Other info - 1987 vanagon westy
- Automatic tranny
- It first started while the engine was warming up but continued after
it had gotten up to the regular running temp
- I live in Ontario Canada and today it was blizzarding a nice wet
slushy snowfall (as an aside I hope Santa brings me winter tires)
- A similar kind of thing happened once before on a cold damp morning
but it just happened once then went away.
Any ideas I could check out prior to taking it to a mechanic would be
great - or if this has been discussed in the list before a keyword to
do a search for would be great!
Thanks everyone,
James
