Date:         Sun, 21 Mar 1999 11:13:39 PST
Reply-To:     Mike Finkbiner <mike_l_f@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Mike Finkbiner <mike_l_f@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Atlanta to Moscow Road Trip (Awfully Long)
Content-type: text/plain

Volks -

As some of you might remember, I found an '87 Westy over the internet.
The owner delivered it to my sister Carol in Atlanta, she arranged to
have a couple of repairs done, and my son and I picked it up to drive
back to Idaho.

We had problems with engine pulsing on the road, and several of you were
kind enough to write with suggestions, for which I thank you very much.
This is the story of what happened, for anyone who is interested.

It's awfully long, so if you are just interested in all the money I
spent, just skip down to the TECHNICAL STUFF I MAY BE REMEMBERING WRONG
section, but the first part might answer some questions.

We took off from Lawrenceville, GA, a suburb of Atlanta, at 7:00 AM on
the morning of Tuesday, 16 March.  The trip didn't get off to a great
start.  A semi jacknifed across Atlanta's beltway, and we took about two
hours to hack our way cross country to head north on I-75.

The van was running well.  Carol's mechanic had replaced the rear
brakes, a CV boot, some of the fuel lines and done a minor tune-up.  He
had also driven it for a few days, so I was pretty confident about the
trip.

The first couple of fuel stops revealed that we were only getting about
17.5 mpg.  I knew we were losing a little bit of gas, presumably from a
damaged cross connect line on the top of the tank,  when we filled up,
and figured that fixing that plus some adjustments when we got home
would bring that up a bit.   At about 450 miles, though, the mileage had
dropped to 15.5.  We were sticking with name brand gas, (although I
wondered a bit about the place that sold fireworks and gasoline),
staying about 70 mph, and not doing a lot of uphill so I was concerned,
but it was running well, so we pressed on through St Louis on I 70.

At dusk we camped for the night near Danville, MO, not as far as I had
hoped to get, but OK. We fixed our first dinner on the pristine
cookstove, and settled in for the night.  I just wished I could get the
refrigerator to work on gas.  I could see the spark, but no matter how
long I held down the button or pumped, I could never get the gas to
light.

The next morning we were up with the sun and drove on into Kansas,
staying about 70.  The wind had picked up, and mileage dropped to 14+.
Someplace in central Kansas, we started having intermittent engine
pulsing.  The RPMs would drop as if it had lost gas or spark, it would
buck and wheeze, and then take off again.  We shut down, scratched our
heads, and took off with no problem.

I had read about this problem occurring with some vans, but the PO had
driven the beast from North Carolina to Atlanta, and indicated his
willingness to deliver it as far as Dallas, so I hadn't really worried
about it.  Now though, I was concerned, because there weren't likely to
be any VW experts before Colorado Springs.  We pressed on, stopping from
time to time to shut down, and running trouble free for 50 miles or so.

We stopped for gas in  Colby, and I asked at the gas station if there
was anyone who worked on VWs.    They sent me to a nice one-armed
mechanic on the edge of town who had rebuilt a water boxer once, and he
checked the fuel filter, distributor, etc. and pronounced himself
puzzled.  We put in a can of Pyroil injector cleaner, in case that was
the problem, and pushed on.  No problems for about 100 miles, but then
we were back at the intermittent bucking and pulsing.  It never
completely quit, so I decided to take the chance and push on to Colorado
Springs.

By the time we got there, just after dark, it wasn't responding for long
to shutting down, and it had died a couple of times when I had stopped,
so I wasn't very happy.  Sometime in the process of hacking through the
city though, it stopped complaining, and when we tried the road up to
Woodland Park where my friend Rik lives, it ran OK.  The mileage had
gone back up to over 17.  I posted the Pulsing Engine question that
night.  In the morning, there was one response suggesting several things
to look at.

His wife has a new Beetle, and they have had other VWs, but they weren't
very happy with the local dealer, so we called Dean Hightower at
Sanmaster Automotive.  He drives a Synchro and has worked on VWs for
many years.

TECHNICAL STUFF I MAY BE REMEMBERING WRONG

Dean first asked if I had the ECU under the back seat covered up with
junk.  He said that it was common for them to give problems if they were
overheated, and that they aren't well ventilated.  I checked, there
wasn't anything covering it, and called him back with the number.

He said that it was the original year ECU, and that it might just be
tired, but that he could take a look at it, so we headed into town.  The
bucking and pulsing were terrible at first, but evened out as we got
down the hill into CS.   I wondered if bending the wiring while checking
the number on the ECU might have exacerbated a ground problem.  Dean
said he would check it out.

When he put it on the tester, he said that the ECU was bad.  The dwell
is supposed to start high, and come down after the engine has been
running.  With mine, it stayed up there.  When he put a loaner ECU in,
it worked properly. He suggested spending the money and replacing it.

So - I bit the bullet and authorized the work. The new computer came in
that afternoon, he checked the engine grounds, put it in, and was not
able to get the engine to run properly with the O2 Sensor connected.
It appeared that it was sending the wrong signal, and the engine kept
running richer.  If he unplugged the sensor, and made a couple of
adjustments, everything ran OK.
Dean fiddled with the AFM and a couple of other things.  He claimed that
there had been a lot of tinkering with the controls, probably due to
computer problems that the PO had not been willing to address.  He also
felt that the AFM was marginal, and should be replaced at some point.

He suggested I could head for home with the O2 sensor unplugged, and get
that checked more thoroughly when I got there.   It was snowing by then,
and we took a test drive.  It seemed to run great, but Dean admitted
that he couldn't duplicate driving it on the highway.  He gave me his
card and suggested I call him if I had any problems, so - I signed the
bill, and took off.

The next day we headed north up I-25 in a snowstorm.  The blue beast ran
fine until we were in warm dry weather, north of Cheyenne, out in the
middle of nowhere, and started acting up again.  Sigh.  I vaguely
recalled a capacitor fix on the AFM that involved adding an additional
ground strap.  I had a piece of heavy wire, so I tried that, and it
seemed that the pulsing was lessened.  It also seemed that I could make
it go away by a definite change in the throttle position.  Mileage
dropped to about 16. The pulsing seemed to be happening more frequently.

We pushed on to Casper.  When I pulled off the freeway, I wasn't sure I
could make it because she was bucking and pulsing when I tried to
accelerate, but we got to the gas station and filled up. I was really
frustrated by this point, but fortunately there was a local VW dealer,
Powders VW-Audi.  I talked to the service manager R.P. and told him what
we had tried.  He mentioned the harness that goes on the AFM, and said
that they had it in stock, but he wanted to take a look at the whole
system and see if there was another problem.

We were still about 900 miles from home, so I handed him the keys, and
hoped for the best.  They put the harness on, adjusted the AFM, and
reconnected the O2 sensor.  He claimed that the that the AFM seemed to
work within spec, and that the sensor was lazy, taking awhile to settle
down, but worked ok.  When I asked him why it hadn't worked in Colorado
Springs, he didn't know.  I didn't want to spend the time and money to
have them see if my old ECU, which I had kept, worked properly, although
I am really curious.

We pushed on to Billings OK, although every little engine twitch sent
shivers up my spine.  The next day, back home to Moscow, was uneventful.
The mileage was as low as 15.5 for one leg, but back up to 17+ for the
last couple.



So - the question before the house is - did Sanmaster jump on a very
expensive fix without thinking it through, or was this a combination
problem?  Is the dwell not settling down a valid reason to replace the
ECU?

Reading the archives and a couple of messages that showed up in the last
week, I realize that the dry weather, long drive conditions are exactly
where I had my problem.  Perhaps the PO, driving in the humid South
East, never experienced it.

If so, why did the pulsing problem show up so badly on a cool damp
morning right after I had moved the wire to check the number on the ECU?

My impression, though, is that the engine is still not running really
smoothly.  After three very stressful days, I am very sensitive to the
engine, and I think there are a lot of times when it acts as if it is
being hit by gusts of wind, when it doesn't look windy.  At low speeds
in town, it seems to be hunting up and down, just a bit.   It's almost
as if the engine is trying to pulse, but the harness is keeping it
limited.

Is that likely?  How can I check it out?  Is there a way of testing the
old ECU to see if it is good?  The best mileage I got on the trip was
17.5. We weren't heavily loaded, and the VW dealership in Casper claimed
they had adjusted everything to within spec.  My 83.5, with a heavier
load, gets 18-20 mpg.  What else should I do to improve the mileage?

If you are going to reply to this, you might just want to quote the
section you are referring to.  No sense sending something this long too
many times!

Mike Finkbiner

‘87 Westy (In Moscow, Finally!)
‘83.5 Westy (For Sale)
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