I'm the one that complained about poor idle on my '85 van. It's always
fun to go down various paths to attempt a fix:) I thought my idle
stabilizer had gone out and was in the process of trying to prove it
when I discovered the van was runing very rich. Hmmm... this was always
a symptom of a dirty resistor substrate in the air flow meter. But I
had already cleaned it to no avail. Well I took a closer look and found
that a couple spots were worn through. Yikes! These things must cost 
a zillion bucks so I wondered about alternatives. That's when I noticed
that the substrate is attached by three screws. Two on one side and one
on the other. Well I took the one screw out of the one side and was 
then able to pivot the substrate so that the wiper came in contact with 
non worn substrate. 

Well, now I have a smooth runing engine again! I'm hoping I have fixed
the problem and have not given opportunity to others that might
crop up as a sonsequence of messing around with the substrate. Any
opinions? Has anyone else had problems with the substrate wearing
through? Are rebuild kits available or do you have to buy new units
from VW?

Steve