What a great exercise!!! We all felt your pain, and relief!

Glad you tracked it down to an O2 Sensor.  It is BEST to replace, gas
mileage, motor running too rich or lean, etc.  Don't go too long without it.

Now, if I can remember this when my 02 Sensor fails!
Too bad we don't have "Check Engine" lights on our vans.

Jack

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Jim Felder
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 3:00 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Question about temp II sensor and bad running

And the loser is.... the oxygen sensor and the winners are those who
suggested that I remove it from the loop.

I just went for a five minute test drive and the van drove great.

Now, what's the downside of running without an O2 sensor? There must
be one. Mileage?

I think I even have a good one somewhere. I usually replace them every
couple of years but I never knew why. I do now! The last one I took
out is probably good and I think I saved it. In the time it takes to
find one or buy a new one, I wanted to know if there is a danger in
driving with it disconnected.

Jim

On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 1:46 PM, Jim Felder <jim.felder@gmail.com> wrote:
> OK, here's the news: I just went out and tried it again and it
> stumbled to a stall in about a minute.
>
> Then I disconnected the O2 sensor. It ran strongly for five minutes or
> so, longer than at any other time today. Then while it was running, I
> plugged it back in and it was dead in 30 seconds.
>
> I will try to repeat this again in a few minutes to confirm what I
> think just happened.
>
> Jim
>