Date:         Wed, 22 Nov 1995 09:17:00 -0800 (PST)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Maher, Steve (SD-MS)" <SMAHER@PO2.GI.COM>
Subject:      RE: '57 Progress or Problem?!


>Then I realized that acceleration was about 0!  I don't know what
>happened.
>
>All the guy did was drop the engine, replace the rear main seal,
>loosen one side of the tranny, and replace the rubber engine mount,
>and re-assemble.
>
>Remember I have a 1776cc in it.  It feels like my friends 1500 single
>port.  I don't understand!

Sounds frankly coincidental to me (in my ignorance....)

I would check stuff that's totally unrelated, it I were you. The more
obvious the better. Such as:

Did the mechanic by any chance bump the vacuum advance tube free from
the distributor? This will cause OK idle (not great, vacuum leak), but
zero power at medium to high speeds. Also a lot of overheating. If you
have a 009, *never mind*.

Or, did he knock loose a spark plug wire, either from the plug or from
the distributor? Do the plug wires still go to the right plugs? This is
a less likely scenario, as you should hear some backfiring thru the
muffler if this has happened, as well as a poor or nonexistent idle.

It's even possible that somehow the distributor got rotated while
the heavy-duty stuff was going on around it.

Finally, the most coincidental of all: Pull the center wire and do the
hold-it-near-metal trick while a friend cranks the engine. Weak orange
spark? Maybe tuneup time, which has nothing to do whatsoever with the
work you had done. But, stuff happens, and sometimes two stuffs happen
simultaneously...

Good luck!

Steve Maher   smaher@gi.com   '71 VW Transporter