Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 20:17:16 -0800
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Still running like crap, the saga continues
In-Reply-To: <049b01c880cc$82a9a9e0$5801050a@cspfr2>
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No man,
DO NOT get a carb kit.
I fix these things all the time, it's usually not that hard.
I promise you 'It's just a blockage or leakage of fluids or electrons."
( fluids also include gases like air, exhaust, and vacuum )
or several.
But working up from the basics....
It's fixable. Of course there are 'really weird ones' that can take way way
too many hours, and this isn't much help, but it shouldn't be this hard.
And I wonder about various things - take the temp sensor for the ECU, -I
seldom find them to be bad, but has anyone really checked the resistance
according to the chart in Bentley ? these are just basic tests to perform.
I've already said my spiel about old coils and weak spark plug wires.
Has anyone checked in the fuel filter ?
I ALWAYS empty them out backwards and check for what's in there.
Has anyone considered the fuel itself ? ( never use premium btw, mid grade
is fine. ) .
I NEVER hear of anyone considering the fuel itself. Could have water in it,
especially in the winter. Water in fuel causes all kinds of inconsistency
and weirdness,. Not Likely, granted, but it must be considered.
But electronic fuel injection is so infinitely superior to carburetion I
can't say it enough.
And Vanagon EFI is VERY reliable. Someone is just missing something on this
one, or several somethings, it's almost always 'more than just one thing.'
How vanagon experienced is your professiona tech ?
One problem in a regular shop is so many distractions, other jobs demanding
attention, constant pressure to get them done by 6PM,
Constant time/money pressure - they make good money when they nail a simple
semi-expensive fully broken thing, like a dead fuel pump say, but having to
get way down deep into the molecules of the thing, and then they work on
all kinds of other cars too - All conspires to make it harder. It's the
kind of thing where you want hours and hours in the middle of the quiet
night to get way, way down deep into it, where your mind is finally clear
and not disturbed every 5 minutes.
Then you can fix weird things.
Regular shops are really only interested in the quickly profitable easy to
ID things - they don't want to have to think too hard it would seem
sometimes. And...really, not being critical here either - but it can be
very hard to wrap your mind around something that you don't think about all
the time. If the shop does American cars too, that would concern me. A 20
year old vanagon to a shop that works on 'just everythign' and lots of 2000
something year model Hondas and American cars, a 20 year old vanagon could
be a major mind-challenge to them.
Oh, and as they get more used to OBD-II pointing them in one direction, or
diagnostic equipment pointing them somewhere, they get less handy at old
fashioned methods, which actually work better to me than fancy new fangled
stuff, not always, but often.
And to sort through vanagon EFI requires just understanding how the system
really works, and coming up with ways to test for that.
If they get used to hanging a machine onto the car to point them in a
direction, they may be out of practice about actually *thinking* and doing
real old fashioned diagnostic procedures.
Could even be corroded ground wire somewhere.
I hope you get your van working just fine soon !
It 'quote-unquaote' shouldn't be this difficult to sort through.
Seems more and more you need a vanagon specialist.
And about fancy more modern methods, they are not better sometimes than good
old technical sleuthing with a few simple tools.
There was an SVX Subaru engine in a vanagon acting weird after some parts
being changed. They called me. I asked immediately, did you get the one for
the right side on the right side, and the left one on the left ?
Days later after all kinds of messing around, that's what it was.
They were out in hi-tech land, when the solution was in low tech land.
Which came down to another Scott Golden Rule - check your work if there's a
problem !!
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
BJ Feddish
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 7:29 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Still running like crap, the saga continues
>> There you go, very simple... get a spare AFM and swap it! Like Scott
said, it's nice to have spare parts to do some test. Find a shop who as
vanagon in the yard / shop. <<
I have a spare and I swapped it out. It still ran the same. It's not a 100%
test though since the spare AFM may be bad too. If anybody has a spare AFM
I can test out here in SE PA that would be great.
>> -Blue temp sender (change it) <<
Where is that located?
Here's my thoughts so far after working on and driving this van for the last
few days. Basically low speed acceleration is non-existent. Pressing the
gas pedal from 1/3 to full throttle makes no difference. What is different
thought is regular cruising speed is great. I was going 50 in a 35 MPH zone
without realizing it. Before it felt like the engine was straining (but I
had low speed acceleration.) If this were my '65 Beetle I would say the
timing was off or the distributer was not advancing. That's what it feels
like. I called my mechanic to get an appt to put that crossover pipe on
next week. I'll have him check the compression too.
Please convince me not to order a carburetor kit....
Thanks,
Bryan
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