Date:         Mon, 11 Jul 94 16:28:47 PDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         David.Kao@eng.sun.com (David Kao)
Subject:      Vanagon choking when feeding gas

I've got a choking problem since I bought my 84 vanagon new 10 years ago.
I have not been dare to take it to my local dealer who might tear it apart and
cost a fortune to take it back damaged.

The problem is that whenever I take it to gas stations to feed, it chokes right
there. I have always seen people pull trigger on gas nozzle and walk away to
wipe their winshields. The gas pump will be automatically shut off when the
tank is full. My vanagon will simply refuse to take in gas. It shuts off the
pump every 3 - 5 seconds. I have to feed gas as slowly as possible to avoid 
spill. It always takes twice as much time to fill up. The problem started at
the very first time (when the car was new) to a gas station.

I have tolerated the problem for 10 years. I have had enough. I got another
vanagon (a 83 Westfalia) recently from a friend who went overseas for a job
which forced him to give up this camper. Then I noticed this 83 sibling does
not have this problem at all. I found out that the tube that goes from gas cap
to gas tank has different sizes.

Obviously the one on my 84 is smaller than the one on the camper. The camper
has a bigger one and it never chokes.

My question is if anyone got this problem on 84 vanagons? Can this tube be
replaced with a bigger one like the one on the 83 camper? Any feedback on this
is very much appreciated.

David