The symptoms of the problem with my 83.5 Westy not restarting were similar - after a
night long cool-down things were fine but not restarting from a brief stop after
several hours of mountain climbing and/or high freeway speeds happened several
times. I also sometimes felt a hesitation or misfire accelerating between 5 and 15
mph but it never actually stalled. Sometimes it would eventually start but the other
times I needed a tow.

After several miss directions in diagnosis my mechanic figured it was a control
module that handles the starting transition between low idle /cranking speed  and
higher RPMs - replacing it cost about $80 P&L. I do not know if there is a similar
module in the '85 vanagon but you might try checking that. (I don't have the part
name or number on hand but it was located on the engine compartment wall - not on
the engine itself.) Someone else on this list will know exactly what it is, I am sure...:-)

Dave Richoux

Jay L Snyder wrote:
>
> I have had an occaisional no start problem with my '85 Westy.  On one
> particular trip, I noticed it stalled after a long trip, just asI was ready
> to shut it down.  I remember tapping the gas pedal, and the tach just
> dropped dead and the engine stalled.  After going in to the Park office to
> register,  it would not start.    It cranked fine (I have two batteries),
> but it would not catch, like no spark.  It eventually started after 30 or
> 40 minutes or so.   A post earlier today mentioned this problem on their
> '85 Vanagon.  The only thing I have not really looked at carefully on this
> engine is the distributor (other than new cap, rotor and wires).  I have
> heard of others with Hall sender failures.  Would heat cause it to fail,
> then work later on?  I thought at the time it was a too lean setting (I had
> leaned out the AFM a few notches), the altitude (this was at Shenendoah
> National Park, Skyline Drive), or possible the timing being too far
> advanced (I am running more advance than the stock 5 ATDC).  The AFM is
> back to the original notch and the timing is closer to stock at about 1 or
> 2 BTDC.   Do the HAll senders just fail or can they just have intermittant
> problems, leading to total failure?  I have heard about the connection at
> the distributor sometimes failing.  Maybe this is the problem?
>
>                                                                         Jay