Date:         Tue, 7 Jun 2011 22:04:39 -0400
Reply-To:     Jonathan Poole <jfpoolio@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jonathan Poole <jfpoolio@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Fuel pump circuit information to file away
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Some of you may recall that the air cooled engine in my 83 westy was
experiencing a cutout at around 3k rpm while driving.  When I last emailed
the list about this problem I suspected the electronic ignition that I had
recently installed.  In the subsequent months I've only driven my van a few
times so opportunities to test my changes and to troubleshoot have been
limited.  I recently discovered the problem though and it turned out to be
lack of power at the fuel pump.  This was caused by my neglecting to
reconnect the fuel pump circuit lead to the starter when I had changed
something on the starter wiring.  I must have not seen that it was
disconnected when I put things back together in there.

So here is the oddity, the fuel pump was getting enough power to run the
engine in spite of it's primary lead being disconnected from the starter.  I
haven't traced the circuit out in the wiring diagram or on the van so I'm
not sure where the power was coming from but apparently it was enough
voltage/amperage to run the pump so that I had the volume of fuel needed to
run the engine at around 3k rpm but not above.  It's an odd problem that had
me scratching my head.  Once I was able to determine that it was a fuel
supply issue it became easier to track the problem down but I wasted a lot
of time looking elsewhere which is too often the case with mechanical
troubleshooting.

I now have a starting battery drain to track down and blinkers that are
always powered which I don't think should be.  I wonder if these problems
were somehow caused by the overloading of a circuit by unintentionally
powering my fuel pump with it??  I hope to find out soon.

Jonathan Poole
'83 AC Westy