Date:         Mon, 9 Jan 2012 08:37:38 -0700
Reply-To:     David Hardy <david@PLANETMIND.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         David Hardy <david@PLANETMIND.NET>
Subject:      Re: Hesitation...kind of...
In-Reply-To:  <201201090508.q0958jlw004579@haleakala.planetmind.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; DelSp="Yes"; format="flowed"

This sounds a lot like what happened to my '90 westy also on a trip to  
Santa Fe (oddly enough). After 2 hrs, started bucking slightly, then  
more and more - turned into real hesitation. I too did the capacitor  
fix - which also changed the symptoms. It finally died and ran so bad  
I couldn't drive it - until I unplugged the O2 sensor. Then started  
right up and ran fine. So I replaced that, and it was fine all the way  
back to Colorado. Now I'm having this sporadic engine cutout issue,  
which almost stranded me once, but fixed itself and hasn't occurred in  
the last 1000 miles. I'm going to replace my Hall sender, as there  
seems to be some broken/melted plastic in there, and from what I've  
read, they do fail after 200k+ miles. Seems  like it must  get pretty  
hot inside the distributor. You should also check the hall sender  
plug- those wires are always brittle, and the connector gets loose.

Such is the price we pay for driving 20+-year old vehicles, I guess.

david

> On Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 10:52 PM, Daniel Rotblatt
> <d.rotblatt@verizon.net>wrote:
>
>> The symptoms are: after driving about 100 miles on the freeway and
>> then hitting some traffic the van seemed to hesitate when I pushed on
>> the gas then it would accelerate.  If it had a carburetor like cars I
>> know how to work on, I would say that the accelerator jet was clogged.
>> As it is, I'm sure it's some computer sensor thing.  The next day on
>> the trip back I didn't have the problem.  '85 Westy, 1.9 L.
>>
>> Background:  I've had the car since april and it runs well, but when
>> coming back from Santa Fe this summer the car exhibited vanagon
>> disease - that hesitation on the highway for a moment, then again,
>> then again, then you stop wait and start up again and it's fine until
>> it starts again.  I did notice that this occured less at night (when
>> the temperature was below
>> 100 outside).  Made it back and a month or so ago I did the capacitor
>> fix on the AFM from this site:
>>
>> http://www.benplace.com/vanagon_intermittent_syndrome.htm
>>
>> This new hesitation does not feel the same, and the weather was cool
>> (65 degrees).  I'm off to BBB on Wednesday, so right now I'm just
>> hoping for the best. If this is something obvious maybe I can fix it
> before then.
>>
>> Thank in advance!
>>
>>
>> Dan
>> Los Angeles, CA
>> "Winky" the '85 Westy Weekender



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Hardy
Planetmind Internetworks
Nedernet, Inc.
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