Greetings all,
First I would like to thank all of you with good suggestions for fixing my
bus. I searched high and lo for vacuum leaks and bad grounds to no avail.
I switched every component in the fuel injection system still nada! And Lo
I did finally discover the sneaky culprit although in hindsight I should
have checked this early on, but one can be presumptuous. Anyway, I kept
thinking it was something the temp sensor II was guilty of so I took it
out and fiddled again with it checking resistance etc. And then as I'm
clicking the connector back on too it, I notice a tiny, tiny nick in one
of the wires of the connector. I mean I thought it was a bit of dirt at
first. So I got up close to the thing and poked it a bit and some dust
came out. Hmmm, that's not normal. So I checked the continuity between it
and the ECU and voila no connection! So the ECU was receiving no info from
the sensor hence the crazy idle condition. I stripped away the insulation
at the nick and it was indeed broken or rather extremely oxidized. The
wasn't much left of the copper in the wire. I cut out about an inch and it
was still looking cooked, maybe all those years hanging above the exhaust
header did this. Anyway, I got it reconnected and the van runs fine, but I
need to replace more of that oxidized wire, having a devil of a time
trying to release the wire from its connector so can splice some new stuff
in. I must say I didn't come across this particular vanagon quirk in my
exhaustive archive search so maybe its a new one.

Rick Koller
'90 syncro west
'91 carat, gl