Date:         Wed, 1 Nov 1995 20:44:01 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         rickgo@halcyon.com (Rick Gordon)
Subject:      80 Vanagon update

well, the verdict on the motor is that the mixture is simply too rich. I
think this is compounded by the fact that the weather here has been colder
and drier lately. There was a hint of this behaviour (kind of a sputtering)
when I picked it up after all the head work, but it went away quickly and
was not very strong.
it's *real* strong now! Driving it home today while it was still kind of
cold had me doing "the lurch" at one point. Pretty embarrasing!

The question is whether this is a problem caused by a simple mixture
misadjustment or whether the intake air valve (aka air flow meter) got
dirty or something during the engine R&R. (the rest of the FI system tests
out okay.)
But the air valve costs too much new (US$270) to just swap out for a test.
The CO adjustment screw cover is already opened up, so *someone* was
playing with the mixture at some point. Maybe someone adjusted it to
compensate for the leaking heads, and now that they're fixed the thing is
just too rich. I don't know.  In any case, I'm hoping that the adjustment
will be sufficient to lean it out to normal - since it was working fine
before this head work.

btw: looking at that intake air valve, I'd say there is some level of
adjustment in there - a pin is used to add tension to the coil spring, and
there is another screw which allows one to alter the angle of the
potentiometer contact - allowing one to change its output relative to the
valve position. I'm not brave enough to change it though. Not yet at least.
Any Bosch engineers on this list?

-rick

P.S.
There's one nice thing about buying a new car and keeping it for years -
you know everything that's been done to it. I've had my 84 Volvo for 12
years now,
and while it's no showstopper I know that no other backyard mechanic has
been screwing around with it.

Rick Gordon
Bainbridge Island, WA, USA
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