Date:         Thu, 24 Jul 2014 17:55:55 -0400
Reply-To:     Richard Golen <rgolen@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Richard Golen <rgolen@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Wiring Problem Finally Solved (knock on wood)....
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Greetings,

It all started about 5 weeks ago. My wife and I were heading in my 87 Westy to Lime Rock for the SCCA regional weekends. Smoke started pouring out from under the rear seat. We pulled over, and I originally thought the ECU overheated. A few minutes later we started up and was on the road again. A day or so later a number of problems began to pop up....idle stabilizer staying open causing the engine to idle at 2500.....and two days after that the infamous starter problem cropped up.

After replacing this and that, offering a reward to whomever could figure out the problem. Got lots of good suggestions and donated the reward to the Vanagon PIF fund. Ran a new age power line from the ignition switch to the starter and the starter worked properly.

So, a couple of days later I installed an alternator and starter upgrade wiring kit. While putting it together. I noticed burn marks on the wiring harness on the right side of the engine compartment. A bit of surgery revealed a severely melted harness.

Got a used harness from Ol Rvr Rat....took my time and put it in. Only screwup on my part was to break off the hall sensor plug on the distributor when removing the connector. Got a new hall sensor...put it in...and it started!!!


So thanks to everyone from the list who helped out with this "project".


Ric

Sent from my iPad