Date:         Fri, 2 May 2008 17:27:58 -0700
Reply-To:     "John (Gus) Gramling" <jgramling@BPARCH.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         "John (Gus) Gramling" <jgramling@BPARCH.COM>
Subject:      Intermittent syndrome with factory harness installed
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hello All;
 
My '90 Vanagon 2.1l w/ auto trans gave me a couple of incidents of
intermittent syndrome last month (power loss; I turned it off &
restarted, good to go for a few days until re-occurence). Without really
looking, I ordered the tantalum capacitor. On installation day, I was
surprised to find the factory patch harness fix already in there (the
one without the "A" suffix: older, right?). I went ahead and soldered
the capacitor into the AFM, pulled the patch harness off and stuck it in
the glove box. So far, so good.
 
What I'm wondering is:
1) Do the factory patch harnesses last forever? Are they known to wear
out?
2) Is there a multi-meter test for the patch harness?
3) What's the track record of the tantalum capacitor fix? Lasts years
and years?
4) What happens if both the capacitor and harness are on? Do they
interfere?
 
Thanks for your experience,
 
Gus Gramling
'90 Vanagon 120k mi "Earl-the-Pearl" (since 2006)