Date:         Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:56:33 -0700
Reply-To:     Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject:      Re: stalling and hard restart
Comments: To: Mark <mbrush@GMAIL.COM>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
              reply-type=original

another thought ...
need to look at the ground side of things too ...
the ground for the fuel pump,
is on the left side of the engine compartment ..
near the coil.
if there is poor or intermittent contact there, that could cause your
symptom.

I have seen two piece of clean metal touching each other ..but there was no
electrical contact ..
oh....here's a trick..
those star pointy lock washers ..
put one between the ground wire and the body ..
the points dig in to the metal, helping to make sure there is good ground
contact there.

you can also measure voltage drop across a grounding point.
you put a digital volt meter with probes on each side of the ground contact
point .
then energize the circuit ..
and read how many volts in the circuit are consumed across that ground
point.
you want to see a max of 300 millivolts I believe.
that's like less than 1/3 volt in a DC circuit running on say 13 volts with
engine running.

Scott
www.turbovans.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark" <mbrush@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2010 5:54 PM
Subject: stalling and hard restart


> After new fuel tank, pump, filter, lines, ignition switch, temp II switch,
> a
> few ground wire clean ups, and an adjusted throttle switch - things are
> running MUCH better - BUT - I still have a problem.  After driving for a
> bit, the bus will eventually stall and then have a really hard time
> restarting.  Usually happens after I've driven it, get back in and I'm
> idling to leave a parking lot (STALLS).  It's happened often enough that I
> can tell when it's NOT going to restart.  The telltale sign is I don't
> hear
> the fuel pump engage for those brief seconds when I turn the key over
> (before I turn it all the way over).  If I don't hear the fuel pump, when
> I
> turn it all the way over, it won't start.  I keep retrying it until I hear
> the fuel pump cycle on.  Once I hear that, the bus fires up.  This
> happened
> with the old pump AND the new pump (though the new pump sounds a lot
> better
> when it cycles on - the old one seemed to struggle).
>
> It happened today, and I tried replacing the fuel pump relay with a spare
> I
> have.  When I put that relay in, the fuel pump just cycled on continuously
> (not for the 3 or 4 seconds as normal).  It didn't start.  I put the old
> relay in - a few more tries - I heard the fuel pump cycle for a few secs -
> and it fired up and got me home.
>
> I know all the FI parts are interconnected, so it could be a bunch of
> things
> (O2 sensor, idle stabilizer, ECU??) - just wondering if this sounds
> familiar
> to anyone, or if anything comes to mind.
>
> Having fun learning how this machine works - but my machine is telling me
> that I have A LOT more to learn :-)
>
> Mark
>
> --
> Mark
> 1990 Westy (2.1 - manual)