OK, despite the cold, wind and snow flurries, I went out and pulled the
cat-oh yeah, it was plugged. Took my 2 foot section of pipe that I use as a
breaker bar and a hammer and whacked the guts out of it and reinstalled it.
Fired up the van, and a fairly large cloud of blueish-white smoke came
out-I've never seen this engine blow smoke of any color. Took it out for a
test drive and all was OK for 2 blocks, then stumbling, loss of power and
backfiring. Turned around to head for home and it started to run OK again.
So, I kept driving, and now it's intermittent runs fine-looses power,runs
fine again. I'm beginning to believe my original crappy gas theory.
Question-could crappy gas have caused the meltdown of the cat? Since I was
now below half a tank, I took it into town and filled it up with Amoco
premium. On the 4 mile trip back home, it seemed OK, stumbled a little, but
was better. I have not swapped out the fuel filter yet, but will do so as
soon as I  can. Dammit, I should have known better than to buy gas in
Lynchburg on a Sunday-damn Jerry Falwell!

Jeff Stewart
fonman4277@earthlink.net
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/vwcampersmidatlantic/