Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:26:52 -0700
Reply-To: neil N <musomuso@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: neil N <musomuso@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Bad Fuel Pump?
In-Reply-To: <234436.68067.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
The buzzing sound from fuel pump may be normal. Mine buzzes. Works
fine. Another Vanagon I had for a brief time, had a noiser buzz from
FP. It basically ran fine.
It has been mentioned to check grounds and connections. For sure do that.
Have someone watch your headlights when you try to start it. If they
go really dim, then battery is low, or there's a poor connection.
Check battery and starter connections. Even if a battery clamp/post
doesn't have fuzz growing on it, the connection can still be poor.
Connections should be shiny clean.
Cheers,
Neil.
On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 12:48 PM, Stuart Jeff <stuart@stuartjeff.com> wrote:
> Hello Everyone,
>
> Pretend my fuel pump is bad and I left my van sitting for four weeks without starting it. Now say, I go to start it - what should happen?
>
> Here's what I've actually experienced - pardon my limited wrenching knowledge. My van is an 83.5 water-cooled Westy with a WBX engine that had the heads done 60k miles ago. I've owned and driven it around 3000 miles without incident. The only symptom of concern that I've heard is that there has been a loud buzzing from the region under the sliding door for quite some time. It is the sort of buzzing that one would hear if you left your keys in the ignition.
>
> About four weeks ago I was driving on the highway at 60mph when all of the sudden my van starts to slow down. It was as if I was running out of gas (granted I've never run out of gas but this is what I would imagine it to be like). The van didn't stop completely but I couldn't go more than around 20 mph. The engine is still sounding fine but I have no power. I limped about a mile to my office in first and second gear and parked the van. I noticed that the buzzing had quit at that point. I left the van in that spot and haven't touched it until today. Today, I went out there and decided to see what happened if I cranked it. I turned the key, the dash lit up, buzzes, and I hear a rhymthic clicking sound. I assume this is the starter. The engine never turned over or seemed to make any attempt to crank. My interior lights and stereo continue to work fine and as far as I know my starter + starter battery is in perfect working order.
>
> Now my thinking was that the buzzing was the fuel pump and that fuel pump is now dead. The optimist in me says that if I just replace that fuel pump then all will be well. The pesimist in me is afraid that my engine has gone and died for real. The loss in power but still being able to limp another mile has me concerned about a deeper problem. Also, this may just be from a nightmare but I have a vague memory of brief black smoke at the point when I lost power. I wouldn't swear by it but it is a fear.
>
> So what would your next step be? Replace the fuel pump? Get on the waiting list at Vanaru? Some other option I haven't thought of?
>
> Thank you all for playing along at home!
> Stuart
>
--
Neil Nicholson. 1981 Air Cooled Westfalia - "Jaco"
http://web.mac.com/tubaneil
http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/
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