Date:         Sun, 19 Nov 95 18:35:18 0800
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Steve Hoge <steveh@emu.com>
Subject:      Re:made it to New Jersey


> About the "almost": every couple of hours or so, the engine misses a
> few
> beats and "bucks" (is that a word?), as if the fuel injection went
> on
> strike. Actually stalled at a turnpike booth and had to push the bus
> out
> of the way. Wiggled the F.I. harness a bit and that always fixed the
> problem for the next 100 miles. As an experiment, I wiggled the same
> harness while the engine was running, and sure enough, it stalled.
> Tonight, I removed the harness from the bus and made continuity
> checks
> with the ohm-meter; couldn't find anything wrong. Perhaps there was
> a bad
> contact at one of the multi-prong connectors (MPC?). 

I had similar symptoms in my '77 (Da Rust Bucket) that got as bad as you describe: 
mostly missing/lurching/bucking, and I also had it die on the freeway a couple of 
times, wouldn't restart, etc.  I convinced myself that the wiggling I was doing on 
various harness parts and relay connections was related to the cause of it, since a 
wiggle would "cause" the engine to miss, or it would restart afterwards, but I could 
never *quite* track it down.

What finally cured it completely, totally and instantaneously was a complete set of 
new, high-quality Bosch spark plug wires!  (I had even bought off-brand ones, and 
that *didn't* do the trick.)  So if your rebuild has not included new 1st class 
spark plug wires, give 'em a try!

Steve Hoge
'77 Loaf
'89 Syncro GL