I had the same issue with my 84 Westy, never was able to solve the issue with that motor.  

Just parked on a hill, and it would always roll or push start.

The issue went away when I replaced the motor with a 2.1L.

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of SDF ( aka ;jim lahey' - Scott )
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2015 4:38 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Intermittent hot start problem

certainly possible.
what I would call 'a bad coil' ...
and mostly....I don't see that many 'clearly bad' ignition coils..
tho I do believe after firing jillions of times they can get weak and intermittent, for sure.

One should at least have a known-good spare...just to try if nothing else.

I don't think I find a truly bad one more than once a decade, working on many cars at times.

On 9/13/2015 10:23 AM, Jim Felder wrote:
> Another possibility is a break in the coil winding. Cold, the gap is 
> closed and and the car will start. Warm and running, the spark will 
> continue jump the gap in the wire. Warm and not running, car will not 
> start until it closes. Just a thought, I've had it happen a time or two.
>
> Jim
>
> On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 2:35 PM SDF ( aka ;jim lahey' - Scott ) < 
> scottdaniel@turbovans.com> wrote:
>
>> Hall Sender in the distributor pops to mind.
>> altho, when my 85 had that part going out ..it only did it after an 
>> hour or two of  freeway driving.
>> But ...I did 'for sure'  find and and replace a tired and old Hall 
>> Sender and that fixed it for good.
>>
>> an easy thing to check ....could cause what you're having ..
>> check connections to Temp Sensor II.
>>
>> oh..fwiw ..in all things car performance related ..I find poor 
>> connections being the real cause as much as a good 60 to 70 % of the 
>> time...and it being 'a component' that's bad the rest of the time.
>> ...i.e. it's not 'always'  A Component at all.
>>
>> On 9/13/2015 7:28 AM, Eric Caron wrote:
>>> Hi Folks,
>>>
>>>           Any ideas what could cause the following behavior?
>>>
>>> When the van is fully warm and we turn it off, then do something 
>>> like
>> fill the fuel tank or get a cup of coffee,  it usually starts right 
>> back up.  If for some reason we do this very quickly say turn  off 
>> the van then realize the bus is parked badly and immediately try to 
>> restart it will turn over strongly but not start.  Waiting a short 
>> time say 5 minutes or so and it consistently starts right up.  This does not happen every time.
>>> Already tried changing ignition switch and it did not change the
>> behavior.
>>> Eric Caron
>>> 85 GL Auto Westfalia
>>>