Man, I love a good Vanagon success story!  Nice work on that AFM.

Pete
'79 Westy "Aardvark"
'87 Westy "JoesVan"
WWW.Busesbythebeach.org <http://WWW.Busesbythebeach.com>

On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 17:57, Loren Busch <starwagen@gmail.com> wrote:

> I've seen a number of posts over time about flat spots in acceleration with
> a stock WBX so I'm posting this in the hope it will help someone.  I've
> lived with a flat spot/no acceleration from a stop, especially if even a
> little bit uphill (needs more than minimal power to get moving) for a
> couple of years now.  Fine when cold but after a few minutes of running and
> warm you step on the gas from a stop and it holds a committee meeting
> before finally picking up when the engine gets to about 2,000 rpm.  BTW,
> this is with an automatic.  If this were a stick I'd expect to kill the
> engine.  Two of the best Vanagon mechanics I know of have both been stumped
> by this one after working on the rig and trying to figure it out.  Some
> time back someone on one of the lists responded to a post about this
> problem and said that they had the same problem and it went away when they
> put in a new AFM.  Well, I've been sitting on a virtually new (less than
> 1,000 miles on it) AFM for a couple of years, picked it up when Vanagon
> Syndrome cropped up but hadn't put the new AFM in because the 'pigtail'
> fixed the Syndrome and was running fine except for the problem described.
> Dumb move on my part, should have put the new AFM in two years ago.
> Because it was installed yesterday and after a little tweaking of mixture,
> idle and timing (to get them to spec) my Westy is running perfect!!  No
> hesitation, no flat spots!  And oh yeah, just ran it through emissions
> testing today, perfect. The van may actually be running better than it has
> since I got it just short of 10 years ago. Lesson learned was stated by
> someone I told about this last night:  It's amazing that a 20+ year old AFM
> can still appear to be doing it's job right and the van is running almost
> perfect but that AFM is in fact bad or going bad.
> BTW, don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting anyone with running problems
> run out and spend $500 for a new AFM.  That's not going to be a cure-all
> for running problems, lots of other things to eliminate first.  In my case,
> if I had had my Westy in a shop somewhere and they said "We've tried
> everything with not help, our guess is that you need to spend another $500
> for a new AFM" I'd have told them to button it up and headed for another
> shop.
>