Excellent information. Cheers, Bruce >After many, many hours of fruitless troubleshooting, parts swapping, >cursing, poking voltmeters into circuits, etc. I finally found the reason >why my 87 syncro would run rich no matter what I did or what I replaced. >Gerald Skerblitz, our former listmaster, pointed out that the oxygen sensor >wire was coaxial in nature- it is a layer of green plastic insulation over >a grounded wire sheath, over another green insulation layer, with the wire >that carries the small (0-0.9v) oxygen sensor current in the center. Some >long-ago mechanic had replaced the spade connector by simply crimping a new >one on, and had both the grounded sheath and the center wire under the >connector, effectively grounding out the oxygen sensor circuit, regardless >of whether the sensor was connected or not. While I have directed many an >expletive at this unknown person, that actually was an easy mistake to >make-it takes a careful examination to discern that this particular wire is >different than most of the others in the system. This apparently makes >the ecu dump in more and more fuel, causing the symptoms I described in my >previous post. Simply cutting back the grounded sheath half an inch and >crimping a new connector to the central wire solved the problem- the van >immediatly started running great, in spite of low compression in a couple >of cylinders. Small things are so important with these systems! Special >thanks to Gerry and to the many other people who pointed out a whole slew >of facts I didn't know about the digifant fi. > >Bill >www.geocities.com/yosemite/gorge/1706 >
---------------------------------------------------------- Bruce Ralphs, Victoria, BC '85 Westy, auto, 142K 250-727-7617 '91 Passat, 95K 250-727-7685 fax '83 GTI, 256K |
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