Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 10:58:03 -0400
Reply-To: dingham605@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Susie Ingham <dingham605@AOL.COM>
Subject: An intro and Throttle Body leak question
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Hi-
I've been a lurker here for a while, I thought i would introduce myself and ask a question.
My husband and i have been bringing a 1984 Westy back to life. It had been sitting for 8 years when we bought it last summer, it was not running. long story short after much toil and trial ( we're not the most experienced mechanics) we got it running pretty well and took it out for our maiden camping trip last week-end. All went well except for a couple of minor glitches. before I get into that I'll give you a brief list of what we've done on the van so far.
Compression good right around 175 on all 4 cylinders, according to our test
New ECU ( I know they "never" go bad but ours was) coil, plugs, plug wires, shad injectors cleaned, new fuel pressure regulator, replaced all fuel lines, vacuum advance unit was replaced
There is no catalytic convertor, it is just a hollow shell.
now in order to get it running relatively well, Hubby had advanced the timing-- otherwise the throttle body response was very slow. There seems to be a leak in the shaft of the Throttle body-- we switched it out with another ( used) and it too leaks around the shaft and has a poor fit between the butterfly and the housing.
On our trip we had these two issues...
a couple of times it died at a stop sign.
it got terrible gas mileage ( around 12 mpg)
So now we are contemplating buying a rebuilt throttle body ( at 350 dollars, ouch) but I'm a little bit hesitant in spending the cash if it's not going to fix it for sure. BTW we know there's a leak in the tb because we blow smoke into the vac line and it pretty readily escapes through the TB.
so yes it does seem like a tb is in order, but like I said I hate to part with the cash-- does it seem likely that a new Tb is warranted? We haven't taken it to a mechanic yet, our plan was to replace the Tb, then take it to the mechanics to have everything adjusted if needed.( Afm, etc)
what do you think?
thanks in advance, Susie
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