Volks,

Hopefully a few of you are following this very technical thread.  Today i pulled the old cat converter off.....al busted up inside....I replaced it.  

Fired up the motor, and it did not really hunt, but did not really idle that smooth either.  Idled around 800 rpm.  Conked out after a few minutes, but easily started.  Symptoms before replacing the cat...was HELL to start again.

Anyway, I let it warm up in the driveway.  Then I get brave and test drive.  Ok thus far........once I come to a stop and it dies. Fire it back up, step on the throttle, and very slow response, then all of a sudden it kicks in.  Did that once more.  I looked at the oxygen sensor after it was warmed up on the digitool, and it was always reading some negative volt number.  Then when I pulled back in the drive after a 10 minute run, I walk around back and notice black smoke ( light) coming out of the tail pipe.  I come inside and step on the throttle.  Huge puff of black smoke.....I take indicating rich mixture.   I put my gastester in the tail pipe and tried to adjust down to 2.0 CO mix, and basically the van was unresponsive to it. 

Any ideas?  The cat fixed half the problems...now to fix the rest..............
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)