Date:         Tue, 2 Jul 1996 22:54:23 -0800
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         dakhlia@wuecona.wustl.edu (Sami Dakhlia)
Subject:      '75 won't start

...since I messed around with it on Sunday.

What happened was that I had a short brass fitting stuck in the oil
pressure sender hole. The sender of the oil pressure gauge used to be
attached to a brass T long enough to clear the distributor, a T that I
had assembled from shorter ends five years ago, a week after buying
the bus. Those were still the dark ages when I didn't know about VDO,
their adaptors, and the multitude of merchants thriving in the
air-cooled aftermarket.

Enlightened by two years of avid V@L reading and prompted by teflon
tape-induced erratic readings, I decided to replace my homemade T with
the real thing. Unfortunately, all but the lowest end came unscrewed,
the latter stuck in the sheet metal recess and barely accessible with
a small vice-grip. All the awkward use of the vice-grip accomplished was to
tear the fitting and drop some brass shavings into the hole (I fished them
out with Q-tips). To make a long story short, I had to remove the
sheetmetal, i.e., practically strip the left part of the engine almost to
the bare block, just to get a good grip on the small pipe.

Many hours later, everything was reassembled and I started up the engine.
Started right up, but ran a bit rough; I revved it a bit longer, maybe 30
seconds, let it return to idle and it stalled. Returned to the back to
"look and scratch my head" and found that I had forgotten to reconnect the
electric plug to the air-flow box. A-ha!, no wonder, I thought. Reconnected
it and started up the engine, but it ran just as badly and eventually
stalled again. Since then, it has refused to start.

Well, what could it be? Obviously, I will have to perform a few tests, make
sure it gets fuel and spark. But I don't understand why it failed so
abruptly. Did some reading tonight and learned that once the starter is
released, the fuel pump relay receives its signal from the air-flow box.
Hence the fuel pump was not pumping during the 30 second run when the
air-box connector was unplugged. Could this have caused some damage?

Any and all suggestions or guesses of likely candidates for inspection, no
matter how crazy, will be greatly appreciated.

--Sami (the Sunday mechanic)
dakhlia@wuecona.wustl.edu

PS: My oil leak is much worse than before. I will have to find some
contortionist 15mm wrench to tighten that new VDO hose.