Man Oh Man,
That dang ole www.vanagon.com thang is GREAT!!!  Thanks for the replies.
I have the distributor in as per the Bentley, Haynes and your instructions.
Still no joy.   May be in the ECU.    I am gonna start over with the systems checks and see what I can find out.

I am still trying to figure why the engine quit when it did, hoping that something I was doing caused the fault and would help trace the problem.
I was in the process of doing the dreaded cooling system bleed,  front end jacked up, engine idling a little on the warm side.  The radiator fan had kicked in but was running quietly.  I suppose this was at first stage speed for the fan.
Odd,  since I have never had it operate at that speed since I bought the van.
It had only operated at high(and loud) speeds.  I was intending to find the bad resistor behind the headlight, eventually,  but that was on down the list of things to fix.   Some coolant was running out of the expansion tank and had gotten down onto the O2 sensor.  Without warning or stalling or studdering it just quit.   I find it hard to believe that this could have injured the ECU.  I figure the sensor stays wet in the rain and has never been a  problem.

Thanks for listening.
Any genius fixes out there?
Dan Hall