Date:         Fri, 11 Nov 94 20:10:02 MST
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         jackr@starfleet.scs.ag.gov
Subject:      Re: Occasional Rough Running '86

I can't say whether this is the cause of your problem or not, since I'm
not sure which air flow meter the 86 uses.  My 81 would "hiccup"
occasionally whenever I went over sharp bumps, railroad tracks, etc.  Just
an intermittent problem that never failed hard, so I couldn't trace it down.

It finally failed (in my driveway, thankfully) one day when I was checking
the resistances on the air flow meter.  The engine ran _terribly_, backfiring,
smoking, etc.  Since I had just been working on the engine I knew it was 
running poorly due to something I had done.  Now all I had to do was figure
out what.

I inspected all the wiring to the air flow meter as well as the air flow
meter itself.  Pulled the rubber boot off the connector to the meter to
see if perhaps one of the wires had broken.  That was when I noticed that
one wire protruded further than the others.  Pulled it from the connector
and found that the clip on the back (top?) of the connector was flush
with the connector.  Took a razor and pried it up ever so slightly, just
enough so that it would lock the spade clip when it was pushed back into
the connector body.

Haven't had a problem since.  YMMV tho.

I apologize if the last paragraph is a little confusing but this &^%%$^&$%^
mailer I'm using won't let me back up and re-edit the text. 

Jack