Date:         Tue, 17 Oct 1995 09:30:54 -0700 (PDT)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         David Schwarze <des@teleport.com>
Subject:      Re: spark, stumble, and misses...

Jose Antonio Madriz writes:
> 
> What i thought initially to be a carburator problem in my '73 bus is
> manifesting now as a spark/distributor problem. My bus seems to be
> running in 3 cylinders, maybe 2. After checking the spark from the
> distributor with an inductive light i noticed that cylinders 2 and 4
> were getting a spark unevenly and once in a while... when taking the
> wire plugs from cylinders 1 or 3 the engine dies, whereas if i take
> the wire plugs from 2 or 4 (or both), the engine doesn't change revs
> at all and keeps running as before. Now, if i hold #4 wire right next
> to its distributor hole, the cylinder starts catching sparks and the
> engine seems to make an effort in increasing revs...

Funn, I *just* experienced this a couple of weeks ago.  Turned out to be
the plugs.  I had Motocraft plugs in it and when I pulled them and
replaced with Bosch, the problem went away.  Symptoms were the same
right down to the "holding the wire next to the distributor hole" thing.
> 
> The points seem to be set correctly (dwell ~50 and remains +-1 when
> increasing revs). I thought it might have been a problem with the old
> and filthy spark plug wires that the bus had when i bought it, but
> this morning i replaced them with new ones and the problem is still
> there. I also changed the distributor cap, but didn't help. I'm not
> sure where to go from here... could it be a bad condenser? The
> distributor is a 009 mechanical advance. Any ideas?

I have harped about this before, but the 009 mechanical advance is not a
good choice for your '73 if it has the stock carbs.  Put the stocker
back in and prepare to be amazed at how much better it runs.

-David

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David Schwarze                     '73 VW Safare Custom Camper  (Da Boat)
San Diego  (Actually La Mesa)      '72 VW Westfalia Camper      (Da Project)
California, USA                    '73 Capri GT 2800            (Da Beast)
e-mail: des@teleport.com           '87 Mustang Lx 5.0           (14.17@99.34)
http://www.teleport.com/~des       '93 Weber WG-50              (Da Piano)
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