Date:         Mon, 13 Jan 1997 12:51:52 -0800
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         bayer@sybase.com (David Bayer)
Subject:      Re: vanagon problem

>| I am the owner of a 1988 vanagon of which I just recently purchased and 
>| am currently taking my first extended roadtrip in.  100 miles from 
>| Seattle I encountered a shuddering problem much like a clogged fuel 
>| filter.
[snip]
>| Anyhow, I am now in New Mexico at a freinds and I found your web page 
>| and thought maybe you had heard of this problem, (the new wiring harness 
>| cost $150.00 installed and after 1800 miles of problem free driving with 
>| it, the problem returned 100 miles from my destination of Las Cruces, NM 
>|  though to a greatly reduced extent)

	Ok, I am not sure what a clogged fuel filter stall feels like, but if
you have gotten that harness, and most other things check out, I would point
you towards your Hall Sender Unit and check if the elbow that comes out of the
distributor is still solid.... Here is why...

	I was going up to Seattle with my SO when we saw signs for unstable
weather ahead on I80. Since she had never been in snow before, I thought this
was a wonderful oppurtunity to show her and see how the Syncro held in the
snow...
	On our way up there, the car stalled but fired right back up after
I turned the key. It did it again, so I started pulling off to the side of
the road. It did it a final time as I got there and wouldn't restart. Pulled
the engine compartment apart and everything looked ok. Started right up this
time. We decided the car didn't want to go to the snow and turned round to
make the trek to Seattle where I would have a garage to look the car over...

	We got to Seattle without further incident. But a day later, in the
rain, it did it again. Died but didn't start for about 15 minutes. This is
when I noticed that the tach fell before the engine had died. The 1 mile drive
home was a combination of stall here, stall there, wait, hope I don't stall in
the middle of the two intersections....

	The problem ended up being the connector for the Hall Sender plate to
the wire that goes to the ECU. The elbow had broken inside the edge of the
distributor so it appeared ok on visual inspection (and it had been snapped
when I bought the car so I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary when
wiggling things). The bottom of the connector had wiggled itself back so the
3 wires inside of that elbow were hitting the distributor in the notch where
the elbow exitted. This was shorting the timing signals to the ECU and made
the engine after to have stopped (no more spark, no more fuel).

	I pulled the distributor, gently work a piece of electrical tape into
the notch to prevent the wires from shorting, and put the distributor back
in the engine. Still running without a repeat after 1500 or so miles. (I am
going to replace the Hall sender plate when I can afford the part and can
fit the work into the PO-didn't-keep-any-records-so-I-am-replacing-
lots-of-stuff list).

dave