Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:08:23 -0800
Reply-To: mark drillock <mdrillock@COX.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: mark drillock <mdrillock@COX.NET>
Subject: Re: Stuck in Needles, need advice
In-Reply-To: <8u7lpdqds8gt4xq38qukbq2o.1325361560130@email.android.com>
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If it is running at all I would not think the Hall test will prove much.
The most common Hall failure is a bad wire at the distributor connector
from a broken plastic holder. This allows the internal wires from it to
the Hall to move until one breaks or to rub inside the dizzy until the
insulation wears through and then it will intermittently short out the
Hall signal.
The suddenly dropping tach points to an electrical problem as you
surmised. The ECU and Dizzy are the likely electronic components to
cause this but it may not be a component at all. There are various known
failures of the wiring that cause this symptom so swapping the ECU and
Dizzy may not help. I would eliminate the wiring possibilities first.
If the 12 volt power to the coil or the ECU is lost the tach pulses will
stop and the tach with drop. There is only one wire from the dash needed
for the engine to run. It feeds battery power from the key switch to the
ignition coil. Then it feeds the ECU power relay control. If this power
path goes bad the ECU will shut off. If the connection is merely weak
the connection may just drop off for a moment and come back, causing the
ECU to reboot.
If the van has died and won't start but does crank ok we can use the
voltmeter to check for power getting to a few places where it must get
to. Let me know if this is the status. If it does start but can't be
trusted then the next step would be a wiring bypass to get you going.
If you are near a store that sells wire you should get some rolls of 12
or 14 gauge wire, stranded single conductor. Then get some female spade
connectors to put on the ends of the wire. Also a few ring terminals
with hole sizes 1/4" and 5/16". If you can get this stuff you can try
bypassing the likely wiring fault and determine what is wrong or at
least get running well enough to get home and fix it there.
Can you access web pages from where you are?
Mark
David Hardy wrote:
> I do. I'm doing the hall sender test in the Bentley. It not clear though if you test middle to one side terminal or middle to both at once.
>
> Sent from my Android
>
> mark drillock<mdrillock@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> If you have a volt meter and a helper we can give it a go.
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> David Hardy wrote:
>>> Riding along fine and suddenly our 90 westy cuts out, tach drops; came back on,happened again, etc. Lights on dash still worked but tach showed nothing. Finally died, got it running an hour later, slept the night, starts fine, but after a mile or so started cutting out again, with very high(3k) idle. Thinking of having a new ecu and hall sender and/or distributor fedex'd. .but kind of a crapshoot. Any advice appreciated.
>>> David
>>>
>>> Sent from my Android
