In a message dated 9/29/2003 10:11:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
LISTSERV@GERRY.VANAGON.COM writes:

> To elaborate, the ground wire in question may or may not terminate on the
> oil breather housing. To locate this wire, you can trace it - it is a
> brown wire that comes out of the small wire sheath that contains the wires
> for the Hall Sender. Loctate this wire and clean it's connection. If it
> terminates on the oil breather housing, move it to a bare metal location
> somewhere else on the engine.
> 

       The brown ground wire from the Hall sensor in the distributor is under 
a bolt on the left hand head beneath the air conditioning compressor and is 
fine with good continuity.  
       After more fooling around yesterday I FINALLY have the problem solved. 
 Seems to have been a combination of problems.  After pressure washing the 
engine, which was part of the jobs to be done, the problem seemed to have gotten 
worse.  I opened up the air filter box and found water in the air filter.  
Cleaned out the box, installed a new air filter and viola the problem went away. 
 I think the air filter was plugged but was not apparent.  Looking at it at 
the outset of diagnosis it seemed fine !  I'm not really sure this was the 
culprit but it is working perfectly now and I have ran it and restated it many 
times and driven it and it is fine.  So........I'm not 100% sure what the problem 
was.

Cheers��

Frank Condelli
Almonte, Ontario, Canada
<A HREF="http://members.aol.com/BusFusion/bfhome.htm">BusFusion</A> a VW Camper camping event, Almonte, ON, June 10 ~ 13, 2004
'87 Westy & Lionel Trains
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Vanagon/Vanagon Westfalia Service in the Ottawa Valley
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<A HREF="http://members.aol.com/Fkc43/busindex.html">Frank Condelli & Associates</A> or http://frankcondelli.com