Start with the on/off ignition test!

            Eric                   86-VW4x4
            vw4x4@fyi.net          86-SS Syncro
            Pittsburgh, PA USA     1936-Chrysler
                                   92-Jetta GWC
            www.fyi.net/~vw4x4/vw4x4.htm

On Wed, 19 Mar 2003, Kenneth Wilford wrote:

> I am having a problem that is driving me crazy.  I recently got a '90
> Vanagon in for head gasket replacement.  It had broken down on the road and
> the customer had it towed here.  I looked it over and found that it needed
> head gaskets, and when I pulled the heads, I saw that they needed to be
> replaced as well.  The van also got a new exhaust system (used old cat and
> oxygen sensor).  I did all of these repairs and everything went well.  I put
> on brand new AMC heads, new gaskets, new distributor cap and rotor, new
> plugs, new temp II sensor, new thermostat and housing, and a bunch of new
> hoses.
>
> Now that everything is back together everything is working great except for
> one very annoying problem.  The van hesistates very badly from a standing
> start to about 15-20 mph.  After that there is no hesistation and the van
> runs smooth and goes down the road smoothly.  It feels like one of the
> cylinders is intermittantly firing and not firing and then finally kicks in
> like a turbo boost after you get over 15-20 mph.  I checked all of the plugs
> and they look fine (they are new).  I checked the valve adjustment and set
> all of the valves to zero lash (just touching).  I swapped in a known good
> ECU from another van and this actually stopped a racing idle but didn't fix
> the hesistation problem.  When the van is idling, it idles a little funny
> too.  If you sit and listen to it, it goes from what I would call a "normal"
> (kind of loping for the Vanagon) to a more of a machine gun sound
> (ta-ta-ta-ta-ta, etc).  The machine gun idle sounds to me like one of the
> cylinders is intermittantly not firing.  I haven't checked compression yet
> (I'll do that tomorrow) but you would think that if it was a compression
> problem that this would happen at high or low speeds.
>
> I know it is probably something very obvious but it is escaping me at the
> moment.  Any ideas?  You folks have helped me many times in the past and I
> really appreciate it.  I try to do the same.  Any ideas would be
> appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Ken Wilford
> John 3:16
> http://www.vanagain.com
> http://www.strictlyvwauctions.com
> Phone: (856)-327-4936
> Fax: (856)-327-2242
>