list:

true, the obvious culprit here would be carbon deposits blocking the
throttle at idle. unlike a carb or tbi system, there is no fuel spray to
keep the throttle plate/bore free of deposits from vapors and blow-by
entering through the crankcase breather hose. this is pretty routine stuff.

but somewhere i saw a post to the effect that the majority of breather
towers on the 1.9 l of this vintage are defective due to a disintegrated
rubber flapper valve, and are essentially an open tube with a baffle. this
seems to be a pretty serious problem, and evidently caused our
1.9 l to konk out unless my foot was on the gas at a traffic light;
stabbing the throttle and releasing also would cause the engine to konk
out; i could, just barely, get it to idle if i gently reased the throttle.
the slow idle speed with max idle rpm at an unusually restrictive idle
adjustment (screw in), and low sensitivity adjusting the idle speed screw,
were additional symptoms.

dan

On Sat, 4 Dec 2004 12:03:06 EST, JordanVw@AOL.COM wrote:

>ive been having this strange intermittant problem with my '84 van for some
>time now..
>i'll be driving along fine, then all the sudden if i dont have my foot on
the
>gas, the van will stall out..  no rough idle, no other warning..it will
just
>shut off..   i swapped the ECU and fuel pump relays (little identical grey
>relays in that black box) with eachother and that didnt do anything..   i
>replaced a corroded ground strap from the head to the coil and that didnt
help
>either..
>
>no strange idle or warning lights precede these intermittant shutdowns..
>anyone have any ideas?
>
>thanks
>chris