Just a guess based on what you have said, but if you can oil the
alternator bearings and the problem goes away you may need a new
alternator.  Is it hard to turn?  Is the problem intermittent?

On 8/23/16, Jared Planter <jaredplanter@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> My wife and I purchased an 87 automatic 2WD westy back in March of this
> year and have been having a great time with her. We've done a fair amount
> of upgrades in areas we feel are important, especially since we will be
> living in her full-time come early 2017.
>
> She runs rock solid and has given us very few issues. Except for this one
> strange issue that has occurred 2 times now. Upon the first start of the
> day we'll turn over the engine and it'll appear to be normal at first until
> suddenly the RPMs drop to about 600-800 and it sounds like she's about to
> stall. You can hear what sounds like the bearings on the pulleys rattling
> and a squeaking noise because of the low RPMs. I have found that getting in
> and holding the gas pedal at 1K RPMs for a couple of minutes resolves the
> issue. Stopping and starting again results in the same symptoms. Again,
> this has only happened 2 times - in this exact order.
>
> However, on one separate occasion she was running fine after being started
> and I switched into drive before she was warm and then the conditions above
> started played out. At that point I switched into park and held the RPMs at
> 1K otherwise she would have stalled.
>
> We have a known issue with the lifter on cylinder 4, apparently it's a
> common issue with Vanagons where the oil pressure drops and needs to be
> built back up by driving and then the somewhat knocking sound goes away. It
> might be related to this but I am unsure.
>
> Any thoughts or anyone with a similar experience?
>
> Thank you!
>
> Jared
>

--
It seems my TO-DO list is a FITO (faster-in-than-out)