I think that you are mistaken w/r to the bad design of the distributor cap.
 The grounded shield is designed to reduce radio interference.  Anyway, I
don't think that a 25,000 mile life for a distributor cap is unreasonable.

Bo Kersey
'89 Westy 66kmiles

-----Original Message-----
>From:   John H. Zouck [SMTP:jhz@APLEXUS.JHUAPL.EDU]
Sent:   Tuesday, August 26, 1997 7:58 AM

=========================================================================
Date:         
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         
Subject:      Distributor cap on '88 Westy

I thought I'd throw in this about a distributor cap problem on my '88
Westy,
in case it has not been covered, and maybe save someone some trouble. On a
trip a couple of years ago from Maryland to the west coast and back, thru
BC,
we went thru some pretty high passes (maybe >10,000') and experiences the
frustrating problem of the Westy stalling when we least wanted it. Like
over
going to the sun highway in glacer, Yosemite, etc. It made it impossible to
revisit Yosimite after descending, which brought me near driving it over a
cliff just to get rid of it.

When we stopped at friends in Austin, TX towards the end of the trip, I
took
the thing to an independent shop. They replaced the distributor cap (which
had not been replaced in >40,000 miles) and this stopped the problem. They
said it was a well-known problem and my regular service shops should have
known to do this every 25,000 miles.

BTW: On examining the cap, I saw that the cap had a metal shield snuggly
fitted around it (grounded) that probably caused the early breakdown.
Sweems
like a bad design.

=======================================================
John H. Zouck
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Voice 1: 301-953-6998    Fax: 301-953-6985
Voice 2: 410-792-6998    E-mail: jhz@aplexus.jhuapl.edu
=======================================================