>...'81 Vanagon has been having problems...
>After it has been running for 1/2 hour or more (and especially after it has
>been running, then stopped for gas or something, then started), it will
>"stumble" while cruising along.  "stumble" means that the engine will lose
>power for an instant (fraction of a second), which can be felt throughout
>the bus.

Ed-  Before you spend any significant amount of cash on the problem, give
this a try:  Add 2-3 bottles of isopropyl gasline antifreeze to your gas
tank.  The symptoms that you described sound similar to a problem that I had
in the past with water in my fuel [I've never gotten gas at that station since].

After tanking up in northern Wisconsin and driving the next 130 mi with the
car intermittantly going momentarily dead - as if the electrical system had
shut down.  Usually, the tach needle would dive to zero then the engine
would immediately recover.  Sometimes this would happen several times in
quick succession.

After a while, something made me think that maybe it wasn't electrical. We
stumbled to several gas stations before I found one that had carried
isopropyl *Heet* in August. (Don't use the methanol-based stuff.)  I bought
the only three bottles that they had in stock, invoked the help of the
gnomes in Wolfsburg, and dumped them in the tank.  Once I got the bus
restarted, it purred all the way home for the next 140 miles without a
single stutter.

I keep a couple of bottles with me, even in the Summer, just in case I get
some bad gas.  It's happened once since then, and a couple of bottles in the
tank took care of the problem right away.

If you're in a warm-weather area where gasline antifreeze isn't a normal
item, you can use a pint or so of straight isopropyl alcohol.

Hope this helps.  If not -- never mind.

86 GL,  84 Wolfsburg Overnighter

Randy Farchmin    --->            farchmir@milwaukee.tec.wi.us
Dept of Natural(?) Sciences
Milwaukee Area Technical College