Update. I experienced the no start condition today. I did not attempt to
give it some gas this time so that I could troubleshoot. It was turning
over but not firing on any cylinders. Here's what I did:

- Inspected the distributor cap and rotor, looked fine, no moisture present.
- Made sure the spark plug wires were all all seated firmly.
- Made sure the wire to the coil was seated firmly.
- Disconnected and reconnected the AFM.
- Disconnected and reconnected the distributor connector.
- Disconnected and reconnected all the wires on the coil.
- Disconnected and reconnected the O2 sensor wires.
- Disconnected and reconnected the idle stabilizer.

Still, no cylinders firing.

I next disconnected and reconnected the coolant temp sensor located in the
thermostat housing. The van then started, although it ran a bit roughly for
a bit. Subsequent starts were instantaneous, as they should be.

After noticing that a new connector had been spliced in to the temp sensor
wire, I removed the electrical tape covering the spice connections. Near
the splices, the insulation was cracked and falling off on all 3 wires. One
wire seemed to be down to just a few intact strands. I fixed by cutting out
the splices and bad wire section and re-splicing the 3 wires to the
connector. The van starts as it should now. Hopefully this fixes the
starting problems I've been having.

-Mark

On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 4:59 PM Mark McCulley <markmcculley@gmail.com>
wrote:

> 87, 2.1l engine
>
> In the past few days I’ve experienced a starting issue with my vanagon
> where I have to give it some gas to get it to start. Then it idles roughly
> until I pull out of the driveway. This happens about 20% of the time, the
> rest of the time it starts up normally. The problem has only occurred on
> cold starts so far.
>
> Ideas about what to investigate? It has been exceptionally wet here
> (Seattle area) lately, wonder if moisture could be part of the problem. Van
> is parked outside.
>
> Regards,
> Mark
>
> Sent from my iPhone