> ANYWAYS, it seems to be fixed. I wish I knew what fixed it, but I don't
> because I did two things at the same time.
>
I> Thing 1: Ken Lewis asked whether the mechanical advance might be sticking?
> Advised adding a few drops to the felt button under the distributor's
> rotor. Should be done at every oil change, per owner's manual, he pointed
> out. I can't say whether the PO ever did this, I got the van at 68,000
> miles and it has 75,000 miles on it now. But I changed the oil once and
> didn't oil the button, so I put some light machine oil on it until it was
> saturated.
>
> Thing 2: When I was doing the compression test, a little circlip-kind of
> clippy thing (a "Jesus spring"*) which seems to be meant to grab the end
> of the spark plug hurled itself into oblivion from the inside of the plug
> end of the #2 plug wire. The wire seemed to grip the plug with a nice
> tight grip without so I didn't give it much thought. After oiling the
> button, I replace the plug wire.
>
> After doing those two things, the gutlessness seems to have vanished. One
> of those two things seems to have fixed it and I don't know which.

I'm voting for Thing #1 but thanks for the tip on oiling the felt
button in the distributor. I'll bet not too many of us knew about
that.

--
John Meeks   ::::going out to oil his felt thing::::

'91 Multivan, '85 GL bits
Northern Michigan
KC8ZFN

Vanagon Rescue Squad
http://www.vanagonauts.com/Vanagon_Rescue_Squad74.htm