You've already had a bunch of good advice by better mecahnics than I. One
other thing to try (and it's very cheap) is a couple of bottles of gasline
antifreeze in your gas tank. Your symptons could be water or condensation in
the gas tank --- and the gasline antifreeze will solve+ it quickly if that's
the problem. While on the subject ---- your 20 year old vehicle has a gas
tank that is very prone to rust --- particularly on the top of it. I put up
with my rusty gas tank for 7 years ( in my 85 Westy) before replacing it
this year ----  I spent those 7 years dealing with water in gas issues
and fouled fuel injectors until I bit the bullet. Just another one of those
things to put on your list. In the meantime try the gasline antifreeze :-)

Cheers,
Doug (Mississauga ON ---- almost a neighbour)

On 11/27/07, James Reed-Jones <jjones04@uoguelph.ca> wrote:
>
> Hey all,
>
> So a quick update on what I have found so far. When I looked at the O2
> sensor it appeared as if the last time it (or the cat) was replaced
> the wires were just cut and crimped with butt connectors and left
> dangling. So for now I have dried them off, sprayed them with some
> wire dryer, waited for that to dry, then wrapped them individually
> with tape, then wrapped the whole thing with tape from the sensor up
> to the old wire sheath that (I assume) covered all three of the wires
> (and put a zip tie on to hold them off the side of the exhaust pipe).
>
> I guess now all I have to do is wait for it to snow again ;)
>
> Thanks for all the help,
>
> - James
>
>
> >> Other info - 1987 vanagon westy
> > - Automatic tranny
> > - It first started while the engine was warming up but continued after
> > it had gotten up to the regular running temp
> > - I live in Ontario Canada and today it was blizzarding a nice wet
> > slushy snowfall (as an aside I hope Santa brings me winter tires)
> > - A similar kind of thing happened once before on a cold damp morning
> > but it just happened once then went away.
> >
> > Any ideas I could check out prior to taking it to a mechanic would be
> > great - or if this has been discussed in the list before a keyword to
> > do a search for would be great!
> >
> >
>

--
http://www.dougalcock.com