Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 13:48:32 -0800
Reply-To: gholst@RAMBUS.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Grant Holst <gholst@RAMBUS.COM>
Organization: Rambus inc.
Subject: Re: Loss of Power and surging
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Bulley wrote:
>
> Okay, we have to decide whether the gas fill-up was a red herring, or a
> holy mackerel. I think it may have been purely coincidence than your
> trouble followed a fill-up under the red & blue V.
>
> A fill-up *could* have contained enough dirt & poo to clog the filter, and
> *some* of the symptoms you described would result, (hesitation, slow go,
> CHP attention). The rich smell however points to a vacuum leak or something
> else.
>
> The 5mpg is a bad sign.
>
> Had you driven the car much lately? Did you change something recently,
> (like the timing, or ??) ? Where I'm going is, *if* you changed something
> last weekend, and it caused hot exhaust/rich run, you could have puttered
> around town for a week or so without any problems. Then the other day, you
> hop on the San Diego Freeway for two hours, run it at 70 mph, the
> mal-adjusted whatever turns the catalytic converter into molten porcelain.
> It cools while you are filling, and becomes a solid chunk of blocking poo
> in the converter chamber. Now your van runs like a true VW and we are all
> scratching our heads.
>
> Any thoughts folks?
>
> G. Matthew Bulley
> Director
> Bulley-Hewlett & Associates
> www.bulley-hewlett.com
> Cary, NC USA
> 888.468.4880 tollfree
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gregg Howald [SMTP:ghowald@HOTMAIL.COM]
> Sent: Thursday, November 18, 1999 4:17 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Loss of Power and surging
>
> Help!After two hours of driving south to LAX with no problems, filled up
> with 89
> Chevron Octane, picked up friend at airport, and back on the road. Not 5
> minutes out of parkade, the engine stalled and restarted OK, but the
> problems got worse. Noticed that there was a serious loss of power, ie,
> step on gas, no response. Went through a 1/4 tank of gas in 20 miles.
> Stopping at a gas station, exhaust smelled like engine was running rich.
> Took small vacuum line off of pressure regulator and engine responded with
> increased RPM, sputtered and stalled. Took a chance and drove on, stopped
> by the California Hiway Patrol for driving too slow on Hwy, never exceeded
> 40 mph despite giving it gas.
> Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.Gregg
>
> ______________________________________________________
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I'm not sure you could heat the cat enough to melt it.
If you could, I think gravity would settle it to the bottom
and you would still have enough clearance for exhaust to get
out. What about if the new gas had crud or maybe water in it
that destroyed the o2 sensor? Would a bad o2 sensor make the
engine run rich?
Grant
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