Hello Group,

I need help.  My '85 vanagon gl keeps stalling while i'm driving and then
becomes very hard to start once stalled.  My mechanic wasn't able to find
anything wrong.

The symptoms:
while driving, often when slowing down for a stop in neutral, my van with
stall causing the power steering and brakes to go out.  when this happens it
will often take 15-20 minutes before the car will start again.  the engine
will "turn over" and crank normally but it just won't start until suddenly,
out of the blue, it starts again.  when i'm turning the key, everything
seems fine.  the engine turns over and sounds normal.   the engine behaves
fine once started and i don't detect anything abnormal prior to it stalling
out.  i'm not sure if it's related but it seems to happen only when i am
slowing down and still in motion, never when i'm in idle.  a couple of times
this happened while i was making a hard left.

as you can imagine, this is a real pain.  i live in downtown los angeles and
a couple of times i had the car stall in the middle of a busy street during
rush hour traffic.  another time i had it stall in the middle of the night
in skid row!  each time i had to wait approx. 15 minutes before  the car
would start again.  if anyone has any advice i would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks!

Steve Kim
85 vanagon gl
los angeles, ca