Does it have a pre pump filter?  Perhaps you could jury rig a large Cummins
fuel filter into the line??

Karl Wolz

|-----Original Message-----
|From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
|Ken Wilford
|Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2011 6:48 AM
|To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
|Subject: Update on Belize Vanagon
|
|Thanks so much to everyone who had ideas about what was wrong with the
|Vanagon I was working on in Belize. After testing several things I decided
|to pull the injectors to watch them spray. Instead of a nice cone shaped
|spray pattern I was seeing a little squirt like from a squirt gun. The fuel
|pressure was good, and I even did a volume test which also seemed good. We
|had another set of injectors handy so I swapped them in and voila! The van
|started and ran well. I was so happy and it was still morning so I thought
|we were going to be able to get back on the road with the van and do some
|sight seeing. The customer had complained about the van running good, and
|then starting to run bad after a bit of running and then not wanting to
|restart when hot. I thought this was probably due to the bad wiring harness
|which has been replaced with a new one but I wanted to be sure. So we let
|the van run and it sat there and idled for about 20 mins. Initially it had
|good power and everything. However after about 20 mins of just idling the
|engine started to not respond well to the throttle and then it just died
|and wouldn't restart again! It was acting exactly the same way it had when
|I first got there. I pulled the injectors again and they were spraying in
|the exact same way as the old ones. Just peeing, not really spraying at
|all. I decided to replace the fuel pump. when I pulled the line going to
|the pump, about 3 tablespoons of rust spilled out onto my hand. I had found
|the problem. I blew back into the gas tank, hooked the line back up, and
|the van started right up, ran for about a minute or two and then died again
|and wouldn't restart. I think there is so much rust inside the gas tank
|that it just keeps getting sucked up into the system and bogging things
|down. So now I have to get a new fuel tank and parts sent down here. I am
|going to try to get in touch with the customer today and see what he wants
|to do. If we can get this done, perhaps the van will be back on the road
|and running well. I tested through the entire fuel injection system with a
|meter and all of the grounds and sensor tested fine so I am pretty sure
|that everything is good and that the gas tank is the problem.
|
|Just wanted to let you guys know what I found. One suggestion is to run the
|van off of a new 5 gallon plastic gas tank. However I am not sure how you
|could do this without doing some serious mods (drilling holes and running
|really long fuel lines). If anyone has any ideas in this area, something
|that you have done before, please let me know.
|
|Hope you are having a great day!
|
|Ken Wilford
|John 3:16
|www.vanagain.com