Date:         Wed, 9 Nov 94 13:57:40 PST
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         macklow@sybase.com (Jim Macklow)
Subject:      good FI books?


Due to the large amount of rain in the San Francisco area last weekend,
I had the opportunity to drive through standing water at high rates of
speed, to see how well the vanagon's syncro trans handles hydroplaning.

After a few minutes of splashing around, I headed home, and my poor little
van stumbled to a halt.  The engine wouldn't die, but had zero, zip,
nunca, power.  Turning the ignition on and off, cleared the problem, but
only for 20 - 30 seconds.  A ha!  I am well acquainted with my van running
well for half a minute or so after turning on the ignition, and then 
have some stumbling behavior under load.

I figgered the O2 sensor had finally bought the farm.  I went to Mr. FLAPS
and bought the $65 three-wire O2 sensor (with the wrong connector, the 
VW connector equipped sensor was $120).

So I removed the old O2 sensor (easy, didn't even use any penetrating 
oil), and cut off the old connector to attach to the new sensor.  After
cutting the wires and inspecting the old sensor's wires, I noticed that
one of the heating wires and the sensor wire had the insulation rubbed off.

Since it hasn't rained in CA since I moved here in March, this lack of 
insulation didn't matter.  Playing in the water must have caused a short
between the wires.

Anyway, I went ahead and installed the new sensor, and I _still_ have
misfiring and hesitation under load at low (under 2100) rpms.  Instead
of buying parts willy-nilly, I'm looking for a good book I can use to
diagnose the problem with my little van, and then intelligently :-) 
replace stuff.

So, who has recommendations for a Bosch FI book that includes how-tos and
whys and assumes that I don't have much more than a test light and a digital
multimeter?

Thanks!

-Jim