Date:         Tue, 21 Nov 1995 10:25:00 -0600 (CST)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         dakhlia@wuecona.wustl.edu (Sami Dakhlia)
Subject:      Re: help! (Home, sweet home!)

Lucid listmember Dave Kautz wrote:

> You can't fool me! I KNOW why you are in New Jersey, so does your bus! That
> dear, dear 1800 senses the presence of that 2.2 liter six. You can't expect
> it to cooperate.

<ahem!> Guilty as charged! :) :) :)

The bus's psychology is indeed fragile. It attempted to punish me one more
time with the same symptoms: bucking and lurching. This time in the
snow-covered West Virginia Mountains, after dark, at below-freezing
temperatures. I was ready to sell the bastard--or push it off a cliff.
Cursed and reminded it of its Nazi heritage. The CHT sensor was positively
connected to the harness, so that couldn't have been the problem--and then
it hit me: while putting the engine back together a week earlier, I had
forgotten to wrench-tighten the sensor to the head. Bon Dieu! Fetched the
13mm combo and completed the rebuild. That was it, the rest of the trip,
though long, was uneventful. The engine is smooth and powerful; runs cool,
too. Head temperature was a steady 350 F, 100 F less than before the
rebuild. Drove 70-75 mph with umpff to spare. As if the 1800 tried to tell
me "I'm still worthy, I'm good, and please don't drop me for the Porsche
6." My friend Ben, who came along for the trip, suggested that it would be
*great* in a go-cart. :O :O

-- 
Sami ('75 Westf.)
dakhlia@wuecona.wustl.edu
http://wuecon.wustl.edu/~samid/