Date:         Sun, 6 Apr 97 20:38:26 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Kyle Wade <pengi@cruzio.com>
Subject:      Re: '90 PS fluid flush (long)


>
>After the doughnut excercise, and many strange looks from my 
>neighbours, we put the van back in the garage, and unhooked the coil 
>lead at the distrubutor again.  

  A quick note here;

  If you disconnect the coil wire at the distributor, you need to ground it!!!!

  The voltage going wherever it wants to has caused Expensive damage when
allowed to "Jump" on its own.  When I'm doing a Compression Test on ANY
electronic Ignition car, I ground the coil wire.  I was taught this by a VW
Dealer Tech many years ago.

  Recently in our shop we had a Jetta towed in from a Goodyear Tire shop.
They had done a compression check on this car and not grounded the coil.
The ECU was burnt!  $700.00 worth of ECU.

  After I talked to a friend that I have that works at our local VW dealer,
he told me this is a common problem when the coil wire isn't grounded.

 I just wanted to pass on a bit of info since I saw this posting and there
was no reference to the grounding of the wire.  Harry may have grounded the
coil wire, he also may not have, either way his Vanagon is running and he
has no ill effects.  I know I'd be VERY careful if I had a 86 or newer
Vanagon, because the computers in those years Allready seem to be failing
more than the earlier Vanagons, and they're not cheap!

  My $00.02

  Kyle
  Kyle Wade
  Keeper of the volks-motorsports page
  www.volks-motorsports.com  home page
  Pengi@cruzio.com