Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:13:27 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Back from walmart...barely...what's wrong now?
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sounds like Vanagon syndrome some...........the symptom is it runs poorly or
dies, but if you wait, it'll restart and be OK until it does it again.
do you have the adapter harness at the AFM that is supposed to fix this ?
and it SURE would be nice if you had a spare known-good distributor, ECU,
and AFM.
I liked what Ken Wilford said about the ECU soldered joints .
I've never thought lack of cooling air to the underseat ECU is a
problem..........but it could be.
About ECU's and soldered connections in them..........I read one posting
about Bosch ECU's used in Porsches......
some Porsche nut ..........all he does for ECU's is find the cracked
soldering joints in them and fix those, and gets perfect results that way.
He's never actually seen a bad ECU other than having soldered joint
problems.
but you GOTTA have some known-good units for test purposes.
if you were beating on the cover for the ECU - can't imagine how that helps.
I never beat on my ECU's, but I sure might move it and turn it this way and
that way while the engine was running to see if there's a wire problem at
the connector.
also...........this just jumps into my mind, almost at random...........but
you could try it with the signal wire for the Oxygen sensor disconnected,
just to see if that makes a difference.
And I don't think you have a clogged cat or muffler, but you always have to
consider that possibility.
Some people add aground wire to the AFM, but I never bother and haven't
found a need to really.
And I've definitely have seen an intermittent distributor.
the general thing of 'works fine then quits' makes one think of something
electronic that works cold and craps out when hot.
The stand alone ignition on the 1.9 is nice, since you can try another
Igniter so easily, but not an option on the 2.1 as that's all in the ECU.
and about anything intermittent - if you can catch it when it's acting
up.........if you can be sure it's loosing ignition........
then you know what to work on.
what does the tach do ( assuming you have one ) when it's acting up.
Since that's driven right off the coil..............often you can tell from
the tach ..........either it reads zero when it's dying......or the needle
jumps around........though I have not seen that actually - this can tell you
it's ignition-related.
oh, here's another simple ignition test.
remove the distributor from the block, but leave the wires connected to it.
Rig the coil wire for a spark test.............turn on the key, then turn
the distributor with your fingers, looking for a regular spark.
If it only sparks sometimes, or does, then
quits.............................then you know something is wonky in the
distributor.
If I had to guess right now .................I'd go with the hall effect
thing, or the distributor itself.
and those wires where they connect on the side ..........those are an issue
sometimes.
thanks for keeping us in the loop !
Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Felder" <jim.felder@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 8:06 AM
Subject: Back from walmart...barely...what's wrong now?
> Long story about trying to find an LED test lamp this morning to find
> out what is going on with the hall sensor, I found myself near walmart
> with the distributor I removed last night. I returned the distributor
> to the car and it started right up! Figured it must be the distributor
> connections. Headed for home and before I got out of the parking lot,
> it died. Started back up, headed home again, started running like
> crap. Put on the flashers (only about two miles to go). Started
> running better. Made all the time I could. Started running like crap
> again. Barely made it up my hill and into the garage.
>
> Shut it off. Let it cool a minute, beat on the ECU and disconnected
> and reconnected the connectors between the harness and the AFM.
> Realized I had committed a cardinal sin of troubleshooting, I did two
> things at one time so now I would not know which thing I did, if
> either, caused the effect if it happened to start. I tried it and it
> did. Ran for a minute and started stumbling and then died. Came inside
> and typed some more on this post. Realized I had not run a ground wire
> from the distributor to ground since I didn't have one with me
> yesterday but now I did, so I went out and did that. It started right
> up. It ran smoothly for a minute and started stumbling. I hopped into
> the passenger area and beat on the box containing the ECU. No effect
> so I shut it off and came in to finish this post. I just now ran out
> and turned the key again, and it started and ran strongly. I knew what
> was coming, though: in a minute it would run rough and die.
>
> It still could be the hall effect sensor, but really doesn't seem like
> it. It could be the ECU, but I don't know how to test it. Could be the
> temp II sensor, but I've never had a problem with that so I don't know
> the symptoms. Any further guidance available, given that the real
> range of symptoms are that if you let it sit, even for five minutes,
> it starts right up, but then it stumbles and slowly heads toward a
> stall?
>
> Thanks and thanks to those who have helped so much so far,
>
> Jim
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