Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 17:25:18 -0400
Reply-To: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Van wants to stall at start..but only sometimes
In-Reply-To: <CADY+yGuk5YDfdmgR8AyvFUGHgbRXOqEgYcjyuDZ8oZf48F67eA@mail.gmail.com>
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Don't know if you have a good answer yet but here goes.
For the lifter hanging up (or bleeding down) this is really not an oil pressure problem per se. You have a bad lifter that bleeds down when it shouldn’t and it is also not pumping up. This is usually a bad ball check in the lifter. It could also be a valve that is getting stuck in the valve guide. Depending on how it is sticking you can have the valve open hard which can compress the lifter are it does not close completely causing the lifter to go slack. Either of these will make for bad idle/low power especially when the engine is cold. As the engine warms up the valve guide will expand letting the valve action become normal again and symptoms go away.
Stick valves can be caused by a number of things. Intakes can get messed up from old gas and the varnish or whatever working down the guide for from bad motor oil. Past overheating events are another common cause for valve to guide issues.
For that poor idle after start up you have to try to determine if it is an engine performance problem or a bad idle stabilizing system. My bet is that if it idles OK immediately after start and then quickly goes bad from there you need to look at a performance issues such as noted above or bad injectors, vacuum leaks, etc.
Dennis
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of Jared Planter
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2016 1:53 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Van wants to stall at start..but only sometimes
Hi all,
My wife and I purchased an 87 automatic 2WD westy back in March of this year and have been having a great time with her. We've done a fair amount of upgrades in areas we feel are important, especially since we will be living in her full-time come early 2017.
She runs rock solid and has given us very few issues. Except for this one strange issue that has occurred 2 times now. Upon the first start of the day we'll turn over the engine and it'll appear to be normal at first until suddenly the RPMs drop to about 600-800 and it sounds like she's about to stall. You can hear what sounds like the bearings on the pulleys rattling and a squeaking noise because of the low RPMs. I have found that getting in and holding the gas pedal at 1K RPMs for a couple of minutes resolves the issue. Stopping and starting again results in the same symptoms. Again, this has only happened 2 times - in this exact order.
However, on one separate occasion she was running fine after being started and I switched into drive before she was warm and then the conditions above started played out. At that point I switched into park and held the RPMs at 1K otherwise she would have stalled.
We have a known issue with the lifter on cylinder 4, apparently it's a common issue with Vanagons where the oil pressure drops and needs to be built back up by driving and then the somewhat knocking sound goes away. It might be related to this but I am unsure.
Any thoughts or anyone with a similar experience?
Thank you!
Jared
