If your battery is good and your connections clean and tight, and if it
only does it when the engine is hot, you may have the "bus/vanagon hot
start disease" which is the result of long wires from the ignition switch
to the starter solenoid which, over the years, increase resistance to the
point they won't carry enough current to the solenoid to activate the
starter when the are hot.  To test this, let the engine cool off, and if it
starts then, it's likely you've got the "disease."  There is a work-around
possible by installing a Ford solenoid on the starter which allows full
current to run to the solenoid by bypassing the old arrangement.  A
description of how to do it can be found in a technical paper on Gerry's
website
ftp://gerry.vanagon.com/pub/technical/how-to/starter-solenoid-fix.txt.  It
can also be found in Muir's book.  I've made the fix on my old '81 Westy as
well as my current '*85 Westy.  I learned this the hard way after having
two new starters installed on my '81 only to find the problem
continuing.  An expensive lesson.  Someone put me onto Muir and I haven't
had the problem since -- other problems but not that one.

Another possibility is that your ignition switch is faulty and part of the
same heat-related scenario.

Charles
'85 Westy

At 04:20 PM 6/11/01 -0500, Andrew Payton wrote:
>Well I don't know who read my the story about my trip to Florida & all the
>problems I incurred with my Vanagon but it seems to have resurfaced.
>Originally I assumed it was the alternator but now I'm not really sure b/c I
>installed a new one only a few weeks ago, went ahead & put in a new starter
>too.
>
>Basically after driving for about 3.5hrs, Evansville to Frankfort, I pulled up
>into my driveway & turned off the van b/c I had to run inside for something.
>When I came back outside, no more than 5min later, I turned the key to start
>my van & there was clearly power but the starter did absolutely nothing - the
>key just kinda sat there.  So now I'm stumped & don't really know what to look
>for next.  Please help me out if ya can.  Thanks.
>
>   Andrew Payton
>   Frankfort, KY
>   82 Vanagon L (Water-Cooled)
>
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