Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 20:37:37 -0700
Reply-To: Old Volks Home <jim@OLDVOLKSHOME.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: Old Volks Home <jim@OLDVOLKSHOME.COM>
Subject: Re: 84 Ignition Weirdness
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Off White wrote:
My "new" 84 is doing several odd things, not necessarily related. It
idles fine, but just a slight touch on the pedal causes the idle speed to
fluctuate, up and down. Sounds like this might be the Surge thing recently
mentioned on the list, mostly a pain when trying to creep though a parking
lot or up my driveway.
------------------------
The reason for the flucuation when slightly depressing the pedal is that
the idle microswitch on the Throttle Body is switching off "Idle Mode".
This is a normal function and it sounds like it's working properly.
Without this micro-switch telling the ECU to go to "Idle Mode" your idle
would flucuate all of the time (mine did until I replaced it).
*******************************
Second item: it sometimes "blinks" as in stops
running, then does again, elapsed time less than a second. It feels like
an electrical thing, since it just stops, then goes, no backfire or change
in engine sound. It will do it just idling or at speed.
------------------------
A little harder to track down, but in my case it was the two relays in the
little black box just on top of the coil, the left relay specifically,
which is called the "Current Control Relay". The right relay controls the
fuel pump. Contacts were dirty and I replaced the relays anyway, they were
so old (the cover of the Current Control Relay came off when I tried to
remove it - pretty grungy inside of that). Another possibility is the Idle
Stabilizer Control Box on the left firewall. Mine tested OK at first, then
intermittently - I eventually replaced it as well.
*******************************
The Third Item,
possibly related to the second, is that it completely stops running, as if
the ignition were turned off, until I turn the key off and then back on,
then it runs again. I tried poking at the ignition switch, and got all
excited thinking I'd induced it to happen, then realized I was actually
just turning the key off. Hah. Anyhow, we're about to boldly cast off to
New York and back in this car, so if I could chase away some of this
behavior (the Van's, not mine) it would be good.
------------------------------------
Again, this could be related to the Idle Stabilizer Box or the relays
previously described. Again I had the same problem and when replacing the
relays (and cleaning contacts) and the Idle Stabilizer, I haven't had
problems 1, 2, 3 since.
There is a slim possibility that the Ignition Module on the Left Firewall
OR the Hall Sender in the distrobutor is acting up. Tests to my 84 Westy
were inconclusive, so I decided to replace those as well. I put an average
of 40K miles on my Westy a year and dependability is what I need, so I
decided to replace the whole ball of wax.
Hope this helps
Jim Thompson
84 Westy 2.1 * 62 Beetle * 90 Fox Wagon
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