Aaron,

Try adding a gas drier, the stuff you pour into the tank, to rule out
contaminated fuel.  Secondly if the problem still persist try replacing the
fuel filter.  If you notice improvement; I would suspect fuel contamination.
Adding a quality fuel injector cleaner too would be in order.

Sincerely,

Mark Keller
91 Carat

Aaron McKay wrote:

> It is with mixed emotions that I write this list again, as I dropped this
> list when summer vacation started, because I would be offline all summer,
> and now school is making it very hard for me to do much that is computer
> related.  Now that my van is having a very elusive problem, I need your
> guys's help.
> My Van is an '85 GL( with the 1.9L and 4sp) which seems to run and idle
> fine when I'm off at
> college, where it is very dry most of the time.  Then I come home where it
> rains much of the time, and after half an hour to an hour of driving in
> the rain, my van starts to hesitate, but not die, especially gets bad when
> after accelerating to speed, and then letting off the trottle to maintain
> speed.  Sometimes while accelerating, the van seems to either loose or
> gain power, and it doesn't really seem to be related to which RPM I'm
> running at, so this varying power happens throughout the RPM range, and
> throttle range.  Another thing, with the van parked, I can bring the
> engine up to an idle speed of anything, lets use 3000, and then with the
> throttle constant, the engine clears up and gains another 600 - 800 RPM.
> And at a an idle, when it is running rough, the engine is also running
> very rich (my dad said I smelled like raw gas when I came indoors after
> working on it, and I toutched no gasoline).  Needless to say, my gas
> mileage has gone down the tube, now I get 10 - 14 MPG.
>  I have owned this van for 2-3 years mow, so I know this
> is not right.  Things that I have done so far: new cap, rotor, spark plug
> wires/connectors, checked spark plugs, and they looked normal and
> consistant throughout the four cylinders, VW's $150 capacitor band-aid on
> the AFM harness, and a brand new O2 sensor.
>
> I apologise for any weird format that this letter may be in, because I am
> telneting into my college's server which is using PINE.  Please P-mail me
> back soon, as I plan on leaving around 1:30 PM PST tomorrow.  Thank you
> all very much for your support and answers.
>
> -Aaron McKay
> '85 GL "Darle"
> Student in Mechanical engineering at
> Oregon Institute of Technology
> mckayaa@oit.edu