Well I'm not a technically savvy list member, but I've definitely
experienced the same thing.  Last September we drove our '89 Westy
Vancouver-Toronto-Denver-SanDiego-Baja-Vancouver with no mechanical or
performance problems except for one afternoon when we were driving
across Nebraska into a 50mph headwind and trying to maintain the 70mph
speed limit.  Bucked like crazy until we gave her a rest and got onto
one of the secondary hwys where we could comfortably keep it at 55.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eric Unrau
eunrau@yahoo.ca
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf
Of Robert Steven Fish
Sent: March 22, 2002 2:36 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Mi Vanagon El Condor pasa

snipped ----------
All of a sudden and only momentarily, it
 started to lose power. At first, because the wind was blowing pretty
hard,
I thought
 it was my imagination (denial in a Vanagon!). But it did happen, so I
pulled over and
 stopped and put it at 2000rpm and it started to die and then recovered.
I
shut down
 for a few seconds and re-started and never had any more problems the
whole
trip
end snipped ---------

Is it possible that there is something that happens in the ECU when one
drives at full throttle into a nasty head wind, and the Vanagon just
cannot
push hard enough... I am thinking of sort of like an "over exertion ECU
Shutdown Program"???

Sounds strange, I know... The only reason I mention this, is that I have
read now that several folks have these seemingly "intermitent Vanagon
syndrome" type problems while fighting headwinds.

I have felt it many times both driving across the USA as well as Austria
(same '87 GL) and have none of the AFM wiring harness update tweaks (OEM
recall cable harness, or homemade capacitator soldered on). It always
gives
me a sick feeling in my stomach... as the Vanagon seems to lose power
and
"die" for about 2-4 seconds, and then drive fine for a while, and then
do it
again.  Re-starting fixes it (so for me that means ECU).

I would be curious to hear some of the more technically saavy list
members'
thoughts on my theory!

RSF

<�)))>{   <�)))>{   <�)))>{   <�)))>{   <�)))>{   <�)))>{

Robert S. Fish
Salzburg, Austria
1987 Wolfsburg Vanagon 2.1 GL Weekender
1987 Golf Cabriolet
1991 Golf