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Date:         Tue, 26 Aug 1997 08:58:21 -0400
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "John H. Zouck" <jhz@APLEXUS.JHUAPL.EDU>
Subject:      Distributor cap on '88 Westy

I thought I'd throw in this about a distributor cap problem on my '88 Westy, in case it has not been covered, and maybe save someone some trouble. On a trip a couple of years ago from Maryland to the west coast and back, thru BC, we went thru some pretty high passes (maybe >10,000') and experiences the frustrating problem of the Westy stalling when we least wanted it. Like over going to the sun highway in glacer, Yosemite, etc. It made it impossible to revisit Yosimite after descending, which brought me near driving it over a cliff just to get rid of it.

When we stopped at friends in Austin, TX towards the end of the trip, I took the thing to an independent shop. They replaced the distributor cap (which had not been replaced in >40,000 miles) and this stopped the problem. They said it was a well-known problem and my regular service shops should have known to do this every 25,000 miles.

BTW: On examining the cap, I saw that the cap had a metal shield snuggly fitted around it (grounded) that probably caused the early breakdown. Sweems like a bad design.

======================================================= John H. Zouck The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Voice 1: 301-953-6998 Fax: 301-953-6985 Voice 2: 410-792-6998 E-mail: jhz@aplexus.jhuapl.edu =======================================================


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