Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:53:23 -0800
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: troubleshooting intermittency - long
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well, whatever turns you on.
for sure ...........for some people........if it gets fixed, that's all that
matters.
They may not even care how or why it got fixed, just that it works again, or
even what the real solution was.
Throwing parts at a problem is one strategy.
I think people tend to think it 'is a part'....that it's a compenent, and
that there is One Thing causing the problem.
That's seldom what I find in the real world though.
I do find tired, weak, or non fucnitoning components now and then . Just saw
an oxygen sensor on one side of an SVX vanagon that looked 12 years old for
example. Likely that one component is worn out, and not producing a good
signal, and part of why it gets rather poor milage. .
But commonly, I find '5 half not right things' and they all add up.
I find situations ...........here's one ........a no-start condition on a
2.2 subaru vanagon. The conversion had been running a couple of weeks, now
won't start. Has igntion but no injector pulse to the injectors.
Component wise, we had another ecu, and I belive we tried it - no
difference.
what did fix it though was checking resistance on each of the 7 or so ground
wires in the harness to the ecu, from the ecu end.
the first 5 had like .6 ohms to ground. The last two..........6 ohms on one,
22 on the other.
We ran new ground wires around the harness - bingo ! ...Fixed.
Black and white.........no signal to injectors before, now we got 'em.
No amount of throwing parts at that problem would have fixed it.
AND.....a bit of wire and wire splices sure cost a lot less than air flow
meters, igniters, ecu's etc.
component wise, the guy even had gotten off into messing with injectors,
didn't get a seal in the right place, and filled a couple of cylinders, the
cat, and the muffler with raw liquid gasoline !
.........from 'throwing parts at it."
so ......if you get lucky and it IS a compenent issue ...and you happen to
get it right the first or second time.........fine.
but if it's not a compenent ..............what are you going to do ?
I would say for some people then ..........to them it's a POS and they will
just have to sell it as is not working, or pay someone who is willing to
think and dig to actually fix it.
and really .......very, very often, it is NOT a component !
I do at least 4 times as much cleaning, lubing, adjusting and just plain
sorting out as I do replacing parts. 4 to 1 ratio even ...and I get great
results. Sometimes it takes a while for sure. But knowing that THE issue is
found and fixed, rather than possibly 'just covered over ' with parts thown
at it is worth A LOT !
I can't tell you the number of cars and vans I have seen with new tune up
parts in them that didn't make one tiny bit of difference.
the tune up parts used in modern cars and vanagons are really well
made....like good bosch stuff. Those parts hardly wear.......
and even a little pitting on a the terminals in a Bosch distributor cap add
up to totally nothing. I would say plug wires are an area that ca be weak,
and plugs were are tiny bit. eventually, ....but the tune up parts, with
exceptions of course, are not why vangons don't run right.
I say poor workmanship is a far bigger issue than worn tune up parts.
you know, if the throttle switch isn't making contact at idle......which I
find all the time, no amount of throwing an air flow meter at it, or new
spark plugs will make any difference. And buying a new throttle body is not
normally done. So by golly .........
somebody is going to have to listen for that switch to click at idle, and
make sure it closes very close to base throttle plate setting ...
or gasp ! ...someone might even have to get out an ohm meter, or even a low
tech test light to check continuity and when it happens. .........to check
that adjustment.
No amount of throwing parts at it will make any difference.
Really .......it's in the workmanship, the servicing, and the adjustments
and the lubrication ......it is not in 'the parts' that much at all.
It's a shame to see expensive parts on a van, that the poor owner paid some
shop for, that didn't make a bit of difference.
I see that all the time.
a story reflecting these principles - 82 diesel westy with 98 subaur
imprezza 2.2 engine ( a real rippin' engine btw, better than the common 90
to 94 OBD-I EJ22. I bought the van running, but runing incorrectly. Symtom
was a bad stumble when reving it.
ok..........let's talk about throwing parts at a problem. There was an
invocie in the van for I swear 760 or so dollars. About 200 something for a
new throttle swtich, and 500 something in labor, which somebody paid..
now maybe it did have a bad throttle switch anyway ( though I've never had
to replace one yet on a subaru engine - never even had to adjust one even )
.................so 'maybe' it did need that part......but it still was
obviously not right acceleration wise.
It took me maybe 50 minutes max to find a pulled apart wire splice very
close to the ecu, on one of the 3 TPS wires - bingo !
Problem fixed.
So it's likley some poor vanagon owner got plain ripped off there to the
tune fo 700 some bucks. You know .......a 50 cent wire splice and some
intelligent sluthing is what fixed it, and no amount of throwing parts at it
ever would.
And it sure was not a POS ........you had to watch that van on the highway
that it did not just creep up on it's own to above 75 or so. It got about 19
mph driving it from southern Oregon to Portland OR,. just rippin along with
great performance the whole way.
Darn sharp looking van in a light green 'mist' metalic paint and no dents or
rust anywhere.
it's is the workmanship guys, not the parts, though sometimes of course,
hard parts are needed.
And I would say, as high as a four to one ratio of where just 'doing
it right' like it should have been done in the first place, is what REALLY
fixes vanagons, and not so much in the hard parts that go on it. Nothing
will make up for a shot muffler of course, expect a new or good used one.
But litle glitches .........high resistance in a ground connection, poor
wiring work with total lack of protection against corrsion .......all that,
is not about 'parts'..........that's about good solid workmanship.
and I find it very rewarding to find 'the little thing' that's causing the
problem . That no-start 2.2 subaru guy sure was happy when we ran new ground
wires and it ran for the first time in a week, and after throwing parts at
it too.
"It's just a leakage or blockage of fluids or electrons" as I've quoted
many times,.............and sometimes/often, the leakage or blackage is not
in a component or hard part.
have fun !
scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Hanson" <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 2:01 PM
Subject: Re: troubleshooting intermittency
> I don't agree that "most of the satisfaction is finding out what the
> actual problem was...." While that is sometimes sort of satisfying, for
> me the most satisfaction comes when I can get quickly past the problem
> when
> my van (or scooter, or racecar, or whatever) either quit working properly
> or
> refused to work at all and thwarted my plans for that period of time...
>
> If I can 'throw a part at it" and get on with my life...very
> satisfying..If I have to spend hours with a voltmeter, schematics,
> digitizing ohms and analyzing micro signals...I find that rather
> tedious...And when a problem occurs that is caused by a very obscure
> coincidence of circumstances, one that results in large expenditures of
> time to trace and fix....When I finally figure one of those problems out
> rather than satisfaction...I just go..."Great, now I can sell this POS and
> get something easy to work on instead"...
> Don Hanson
> On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 2:27 PM, Scott Daniel - Turbovans <
> scottdaniel@turbovans.com> wrote:
>
>> hi,
>> re
>> "most of the satisfaction of troubleshooting is finding out what the
>> actual
>> problem was instead of solving the problem by throwing parts at it."
>>
>> I'll say !
>>
>>
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