Crawl under the thing, and check out the wires on the positive post of the starter. If the smaller lead, which supplies power to most of the engine controls, is corroded or otherwise in bad shape, then strange things will happen at the ECU, because of reduced and varying voltage. Other places that wire connects to would also be good places to search.

  Grounds are anther possibility. Look to the bundle on the left head, and look for fraying, and corrosion.

JordanVw@AOL.COM wrote:
  maybe some of y'all can shed some light on this...?

Subj: [vanagon] Sudden death syndrome, 83.5, 1.9l
Date: 4/5/07 1:06:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: keithwwalker@yahoo.com
To: vanagon@yahoogroups.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)

OK, so I was driving my doka the past few days and the idle was bad,
as if a plug was dirty and was missing.

After a while it would get better.

Well last night, the idle did not get better, and then I was driving
up an incline in 2nd gear and lugging the engine, and then the engine
just flat out died.

I tried cranking it over and none of the cylinders were firing (fuel
pump was OK too). I feared I may of flooded the engine, so I opened
the throttle all the way to clear out the engine and that didn't work.

So I parked the doka and when I got back 2 hours later is started
right up! No bad idle, no problems.

I believe that there is some sort of electronic problem here. Perhaps
the idle stabilizer, TPS, or distributor?

Can anyone give advice? I don't want to get stranded...

Keith Walker

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