Date:         Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:44:43 -0700
Reply-To:     neil N <musomuso@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         neil N <musomuso@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Long and Boring Report: Why my Vanagon conversion (Jetta)
              wouldn't start
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hi all.

There were many useful suggestions made to requests posted by me
regarding the no start on the Jetta 2.0 ABA I installed in my Vanagon.

Those were MUCH appreciated.

Here's what the problems were (that I can remember!)

First off, you CAN plug in a given connector to the wrong part. It
seemed to me that VW made each connector different.

Not so.

Plugs I got wrong:

One of the 2 throttle position sensors, (donor was an auto tranny) was
plugged into the MAF
Wrong connector on knock sensor. IIRC, it was the MAF plug.
Possibly got #3 and #4 FI connectors swapped.

Wires I had trouble with:

basically, the connections to the power supply relay, and the fuel
pump relay. The power supply relay only needs 3 wires. Supply, load,
and ground from ECU. The FP relay had me confused as Bentley showed an
internal connection from 30 to what I assume is 86. The FP relay that
came with donor, has a different (standard if you will) diagram. No
connection from 30 to 86 though I did wire in a jumper for + to 86
from 30.

There were several, or more, mystery wires. I tracked just about all
of them down. This was not an easy process, but a great way to learn
more about reading Bentley wiring diagrams, and just deal with
electrical stuff in general.

I should mention that for the most part, one is tracing wires to/from
the ECU connector or the 28 pin connector. I found that counting the
little sockets in these connectors was a pain. I'd count from the
wrong end on the ECU or kept seeing "46" as "48". Or just had trouble
reading the little numbers on the 28 pin connector. If you ever do it.
you'll know what I mean.

The 28 pin connector, and connector to ECU (though much less so on
ECU) needed cleaning.

Used DeOxit. Worked great!

The "engine" portion of the wiring harness had many cracks spread over
about 5 different wires. I took a few hours and cut out bad sections
and re-inspect. I put heat shrink tube on all new soldered
connections. I also taped them.

Timing:

Originally thought I had the engine timed incorrectly. Turns out it
was ok, though TDC of #1 was not timed to mark on flywheel. I changed
this. I visually lined up the gap on gear at rear of crankshaft, with
engine speed (RPM) sensor hole in block. From there I was able to
establish TDC of #1 as per the mark on the flywheel. Which I can not
see of course. May not make any difference, though my thought was
maybe a subtle engine balance issue might arise from not having it
timed to the mark on the flywheel. Likely not though.

As it stands, the cam/crank timing is off by one tooth. Originally I
had the belt dead on. Couldn't get it to line up second time around.
Simply timing the engine to the mark on the flywheel, as opposed to
the former, shouldn't have made a difference. When time permits, I'll
pull of the entire timing cover and do it again!

Probably the single biggest offenders, were the cracked wires at side
of distributor, the 28 pin connector, and a few incorrectly placed
connectors. Distributor connection had exposed parts that were also
twisted together. 28 pin connector had some corroded sockets.

Can't think of much else right now, but I think I covered most of it.

Neil.



--
Neil Nicholson. 1981 Air Cooled Westfalia - "Jaco"

http://web.mac.com/tubaneil
http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/