my 81 van had a several power loss.  it would buck and kick like the 
     whole engine was shutting down.  I was told to get a new harness, but 
     I said NAH,  I did the WD40 trick into the main plug into the brain.
     
     
     WD means Water Dispersal-  it is a drying agent, not a lubricant.
     
     Anywho, that was 2 years ago,  and the van still runs fine

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Drivability issue revisited-intermittent stalling
Author:  galba@premier.net at Internet
Date:    1/18/97 4:44 AM

Tim--

I purchased the harness to try to solve my van's problems. 
Unfortunately, it did nothing.  The problems remained exactly the way
they had been before the harness.  My problems were more severe than
what the harness was suppose to fix.  ANYONE can put the harness in
themselves.  It's EXTREMELY simple.  If you can plug an electrical
socket into a wall outlet, you can do this!!  That's how simple it is,
and it's basically doing the same thing.  

If I had had the whole scoop on the harness, I wouldn't have shelled out
the $115 for it.  It was obviously not intended to fix severe losses of
power like I was experiencing.  IMHO, if you're purchasing it for its
intended purpose (i.e. intermittent missing that disappears with an
engine on/off cycle) and the missing is getting irritating, it's
probably worth it, but I'd give the 50 cent archive remedy a try first.  

There are a few different things that can cause the missing, so unless
you like shelling out $100s at a time, try to get a reasonable diagnosis
first.

Tonya
87 Vanagon GL Wolfs
74 S. Beetle