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Subject:HELP! Lack of power at high speeds during cross country trip
From:Paul Borghese
Date:Sun, 14 May 2000 03:54:01 -0400

Hi Everyone,

I am having a problem with my 1985 Vanagon that I am using for a
cross-country trip.  About 500 miles ago, my van started stumbling at high
speeds.  And what I mean by stumbling is the RPM will mysteriously drop even
though I am flooring the gas.  Usually after a second or two the RPM's will
return.  When this first occurred,  I immediately exited and filled with
premium (great now this thing need premium :-().  That fixed the problem
until the following day the same thing occurred.  Similar solution fixed the
problem.

But then I noticed a day or two later that I could not go as fast as normal
and any hill no matter how small would cause the van to be reduced to a
crawl.  Finally after a day and 1/2 of driving like this (and many tanks of
gas later), I changed the Fuel Filter (side of road big mess etc.)
Immediately I noticed the problem was fixed and I could fly down the road.
But about 45 minutes later the problem returned.  So now I am in a hotel
wondering what to do.

Some ideas I have are:

Bad Fuel Filter (again?)
Bad Fuel Pump (less that a year old)
Bad Pressure Regulator

Any ideas on what I can try?  Any good shops in Flagstaff AZ?  Or parts
places.

Thanks,

Paul

Please cc: me directly as my Internet access is limited but I will check
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