If you had to drive the van with a bad valve seat and you really
really didn't want to find the valve itself outside the engine case.
Pull the spark plug and ground the spark plug wire, disconnect the
injector (not sure if you need to ground it). The cyl with the bad
valve would be just going around and around with no outside forces on
it & you wouldn't be pumping 1/4 of your fuel into the exhaust.
That sounds like a simple fix as 'by the side of the road' repairs go....

When I was last looking for a VW van-bus-vanagon I was going to buy
an '80 with a bad valve seat, get it home and fix it. I really didn't
want to spend the cash to have it towed that far and really really
didn't want to find the valve sitting next to the engine when I open
the rear lid (once was enough for that). As it turned out the guy was
too busy to take my money and I ended up with an even better bus ('87
Wolfsburg).

Rob
becida@comcast.net

At  1/23/2007 12:34 PM, Jake de Villiers wrote:
>Pulling the spark plug would help; it would keep the pressure down, but
>there are many scenarios that would render the motor inoperable.
>
>On 1/23/07, Rob <becida@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>At  1/23/2007 11:50 AM, Greg Potts wrote:
>> >Hi Geza,
>> >
>> >What would I do?? Drive it, of course. I'd just go a goodly bit
>> >slower, is all.
>> >
>> >
>> >On 23-Jan-07, at 2:01 PM, Geza Polony wrote:
>> >
>> >>Seriously, what WOULD you do in Thorndike with a bad valve? Can you
>> >>imagine
>> >>the towing charges to get Westy to the nearest Vanagon mechanic?
>>
>>Would disconnecting the fuel injector to the bad cyl be enough?
>>
>>
>>
>>Rob
>>becida@comcast.net
>
>
>
>--
>Jake
>1984 Vanagon GL
>1986 Westy Weekender "Dixie"
>www.crescentbeachguitar.com