[SNIP]
....But while I had it out, I decided to replace my one year old injector
seal for the heck of it.  Reassembled, fired it up, running like nothing was
ever wrong.

Hello Adam,

The exact same thing happened to my '75 914 a few weeks ago.  I had an
injector seal fail that was nearly a year old. It was not an original Bosch
seal, but a "German-made" one that was purchased locally.  I subsequently
replaced them all with the Bosch seals and am hoping that Bosch uses a more
durable chemistry.  Just out of curiosity, was the seal that failed on your
injector an original or an aftermarket one?

Thanks,

Tom N.

'85 Nissan-Powered Westy
'75 Porsche 914

Subject: Dead cylinder....$0.25 fix!

Wednesday I was driving my 2 liter 81 westy that i had just driven over 1200
miles this past weekend in with out a hitch.

Sudden loss of power, crappy idle....I pull over and look for the vacuum
leak, none............limp it home and decide to get on it first thing
Thursday morning.

First thing i check....which cylinder is dead by pulling wires off the
distributor while running in the driveway.  Number 2 unresponsive.  Now, I
had no unusual valve clatter, but popped the valve cover to look to see if
the rocker backed off.  Nope in place, lifters pumped.  Hmmm.   Take out my
noid light to check for injector pulse.  Yep. Blinking away.  Pull spark
plug (looked normal) and replaced.  Still not firing. Pull plug out again
and do compression test.  Zero yes, zero.  Shoot oil in head, still zero.
Crap.  I am thinking dropped valve at this point, so i pull the rockers off
and all the valve stems are equal...then reassemble.  At this point, I
wanted to verify that the injector is actually shooting fuel, and yes it
was....But while I had it out, I decided to replace my one year old injector
seal for the heck of it.  Reassembled, fired it up, running like nothing was
ever wrong.

How bout that?
Adam P

81 Vanagon Westy (The Brick)
70 Single Cab "Whitey"
74 Beetle "Ol Yeller"
73 Transporter (STILL at paint shop)
1988 Vanagon Wolfsburg
Used Vanagon Parts for sale (mostly aircooled)