Well, I finally went about tackling this situation and I have won !  Nice
steady idle now and no more hesitation when beginning to accelerate from a
stopped position.  So here's what I did and what I found.  Following the many
suggestion offered up I checked the idle switch first and found it to be out
of adjustment.  Seems the plastic cam affair that actuates the switch at the
closed and full open throttle positions was worn and by moving the adjustment
the switch can be brought back to proper actuation.  Switch must be actuated
on full closed and full open positions.  While I had the throttle valve out I
cleaned it with lacquer thinner as the shaft was hanging up just before the
closed position.  This cleaned up all the built up carbon in there and the
shaft moved smoothly afterwards.   I noticed no slop in the shaft as others
have reported.  My '87 Westy has 278250 km on the clock.  After reinstalling
the throttle body I went to look at the AFM.  Took off the plastic cover,
YIKES, what a job to do this without damaging that cover !!!  Well, after
much fiddling I got off without too much damage.  Looked pretty clean in
there but I cleaned the contacts, wipers and tracks with lacquer thinner and
blew off with compressed air.  Put the air cleaner assembly back in place
with cover still off the AFM and started the engine to see what was up before
digging any farther.  Let it warm up until the temp needle was up to normal
operating temperature then blipped the throttle a few time and low and behold
the idle settled down to a cool 1000 rpms and stayed put.  So I let it run
for about 15 minutes and watched the air flow meter work, pretty cool !
Everything seemed fine so I put the plastic cover back on the AFM with some
GOOP and went for a good half hour ride.  No more hesitation !  Nice steady
idle !  Yes, got it !  So simple a fix, and I hate to think of what some nice
Volkswagen garage would have done and charged to fix this problem.  Other
things to mention I had previously installed a new oxy sensor and Temp II
sensor.  Only things not replaced yet in this circuit are the idle control
valve and idle stabiliser control unit.  Both of these items appear to be
working so I'm leaving well enough alone for now.

Cheers

Frank Condelli
'87 Westy & Lionel Trains
Almonte, On
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