Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 19:47:51 -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: '83.5 westy starts, runs well, stalls, won't restart
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oh, they can flood just fine !
All you have to have for one to flood is fuel being injected, but fouled or
worn plus not firing the fuel in the cylinders.
The fuel injection doesn't know that the plugs aren't firing if they're
worn, have big gaps, etc.
All the EFI know is 'I"m cranking, I'm supposed to hold the injectors open
the right amount of time.'
it's not 'smart' in any way. ( super modern cars are - , they can detect
misfiring in individual cylinders, and shut off fuel to individual cylinders
, and I would imagine even during cranking. Then you get to see the CEL. )
I can't think of a time in hundreds, practically thousands, that I've seen
or worked on, of vanagons, where there was an actual fuel pump relay issue
of any kind. One extremely reliable long-lifed part !
Even having it checked out is not much of a guarantee sometimes.
I looked at really NICE looking 86 Westy - they had been asking $ 9,000.
( and it was down about $ 6K on serious repairs it needed )
The first thing I noticed was with the engine idling ( roughly and poorly
too ) the alternator was jumping around by about an inch ..........just
dying to break the mounting bolts or bracket ...........as obvious as 4 flat
tires to any vanagon savvy person.
They sellers said ........."oh we had it checked out "...........it was by a
local VW shop............mostly an air-cooled type shop ...........but that
shop missed a common and well known vanagon weak area ( alternator
mounting ) by a country mile. A smart 10 year old could have easily spotted
it.
But a check out is much better than no check out.
Scott
www.turbovans.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "neil N" <musomuso@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 7:07 PM
Subject: Re: '83.5 westy starts, runs well, stalls, won't restart
> It's a fuel injected engine, so flooding shouldn't be an issue.
>
> One possible cause of the stall could be wires/contacts that need to
> be cleaned. i.e. removing and reinstalling the FP relay could reseat
> it so the connectors contact/conduct better.
>
> Make sure whatever Westy you are serious about buying is checked by an
> experienced Vanagon/VW mechanic.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Neil.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 6:29 PM, George Wietor <wietorg@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Test drove the 83.5 1.9 manual. Drove fairly well, but stalled when we
>> returned from the test-dive and would not restart.
>> Is this a flooding issue? The nice lady who owns it mentioned something
>> about pulling the fuel pump relay, cranking, then replacing the relay.
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