I just got the 1984 Vanagon home on Monday. It was in shop for three weeks to find out why it will start but won't restart after the engine is warm.
The mechanic claims the water temp sensor was bad.
Tonight my daughter drove it to school and it broke down on the way home. The FI failed again. I have two Vanagons both with FI that are only suitable for bonfire material.
Before you light them up, let us take them off your hands...
Addendum to Newtons first law:
zero vehicles on jackstands, square gets a fresh 090 and 1911, cabby gets a blower.
EZ3.6 Vanagon after that.(mounted, needs everything finished) then Creamsicle.
So...you take it to a fuel injection "mechanic"...who can't seem to fix the fuel injection?....then.....he SUCKS!!!, Wait sorry....he SUCKs...sluuuuurp.....sluuuurp....he SUCKS!!. My advice is to quit blaming the injection. VW injection IS all injection. VW has never made their own injection. The connector/harness system is 100% AMP...who makes 98% of all injection harnesses for all cars...('cept for GM...they are too lame to pay royalties )...and most aircraft on this planet. Digifant IS proprietary in layout to VW...but is essentially a variant of L-jet. That is Bosch. The parts are Bosch. All injection systems ...save for a few bastard pieces created by people like Citroen and Peugeot...are essentially based around Bosch designs.
So essentially....to recap...you hate all fuel injection because YOU have a lame mechanic. Please... I'm not pointing this at you...but ...I would print off this entire post series and bring to your mechanic....roll it up....use it as a lever to pry his head from his a*s! Then...teach him to read...and make him read it. There is enough info in this series of posts....to troubleshoot and repair ANY...repeat...ANY L-jet or digifant...or digijet system.....even if it burns to the ground!
Rule #1...if you have repeated and varied faults...check the wiring. As Ross perot would say "check the wiring...check the wiring...check the wiring"! By the way...you are allowed "0" wiring patches within a fuel injection system. You can only replace crimped connector ends...and only with factory connectors...and only with a factory crimp. If you see any wiring patches under your hood that you did not install...go get your money back.....and a new harness. If your "mEcHaNiC"...does not have factory crimper tools...and works on fuel injection for a living....again...he SuuuUUUUcccKKKs. Leave him. Sorry for the rant...but this is how fuel injection gets a black eye. Its amazing....if fuel injection ...especially VW injection sucks so bad....that must explain the mass stampede for carbs in the last 28 million vehicles they produced......NOT!. The dependability of modern fuel injected vw's....and other vehicles....is roughly 10 times that of carbed vehicles. Ray
raygreenwood wrote:So...you take it to a fuel injection "mechanic"...who can't seem to fix the fuel injection?....then.....he SUCKS!!!, Wait sorry....he SUCKs...sluuuuurp.....sluuuurp....he SUCKS!!. ..........
Ray
I have three other cars with FI, a Ford Truck and two Nissans never a minute of trouble from any of them. These two Vanagons have cost me close to $1000 in repairs and niether one will get out of it's own way.
Also we are all blessed with FI because the bleeding heart environmental whackos want the government to control our lives. The same reason air cooled beetles aren't manufactured anymore. Chevy had an FI system on the '55 Chevy. No body wanted it because it was too complicated.
Since I am married, the wife is calling the shots. They will be fixed and still have FI and I won't get to set a match to them. At least not until it breaks down on the interstate in front of an 18 wheeler and we can't get out of his way.
I must say that I prefer carbs in general, but thats mainly because thats what I cut my teeth on years ago. I would be hard pressed to recommend that anyone switch from FI to carbs today. How much longer are carb parts going to be available ? A couple of weeks to a few years at most, no one is going to stay in business just selling parts to a few disgruntled type 4 owners. Ive got piles of old carbs down in the shed that I cant get any parts for anymore, sometimes not even a simple gasket set sometimes, which brand will be next? The last Weber part I wanted took me three months to get, luckily the engine would still run without it but not well.
Sure fixing FI takes a different kind of knowledge, but its damn dependable. I have two Waterboxers with a total of nearly 500,000 miles between them and its taken me maybe a total of 8 hours to trouble shoot and fix all the FI problems they have had. Stick to FI, you might end up junking your Type 4 in a year or two if you dont. As I long ago found with electrical systems, most of the problems I have found with FI have been caused by some idiot with a pair of wire cutters.
My apologies cap'n skully. Didn't want you to think I was grinding on you. But...also...seriously, fuel injection was never invented as an emmissions control device. It does also have cleaner emmissions as a by product. In fact...if carbs could simply keep the fuel suspended during the trip through the manifold....they would create more complete combustion...better emissions (as good as FI)...and create better throttle response, HP and torque...just like FI.
Fuel injection was a huge part of German technology......and American and British.....since before WWII. It was about pure performance. Its stemed from aircraft first. The Germans and Bendix here...were working on EFI for cars...long before emmissions became an issue. D-jet was first tested in 1966-67.
My point, is that as long as people...most especially old school mechanics with a bad attitude and a bias...continue to thiink of FI as something that is an emmissions tool/device....they will continue to not understand how and why it works. Ray
Also note that EFI was first installed on the CORVETTE in the US... And I doubt many had thought of emissions in the 50s..
I bet for less than that grand, you could get a new wiring harness somewhere...
Or several full used systems.
I'm still sorta perverse though, I would HAVE to know what went wrong.
I wish you lived closer, I'd be happy to help you shoot wires...etc.
For propane, carbs(modified) are a great way to go...
For everything else, theres EFI.
Addendum to Newtons first law:
zero vehicles on jackstands, square gets a fresh 090 and 1911, cabby gets a blower.
EZ3.6 Vanagon after that.(mounted, needs everything finished) then Creamsicle.
This has probably been mentioned somewhere in this thread, but how does your spark look when the engine won't start??????????
I have seen several (OK many) hall effect switches die like that... They get temp sensitive.
If you can swap distributors between vans, and it fixes it, feel free to beat the mechanic with the other one.
It also never hurts to ask for a refund. (its usually USELESS, but it doesn't hurt)
Last edited by Piledriver on Fri Dec 03, 2004 4:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Addendum to Newtons first law:
zero vehicles on jackstands, square gets a fresh 090 and 1911, cabby gets a blower.
EZ3.6 Vanagon after that.(mounted, needs everything finished) then Creamsicle.
Is there a manufacturer that makes IDF/DRLA type intake manifolds that fit the 1.9L or 2.1L watercooled Vanagon engines?? I've looked, but can't ever find one myself. . . Anyone??
Piledriver wrote:This has probably been mentioned somewhere in this thread, but how does your spark look when the engine won't start??????????
I have seen several (OK many) hall effect switches die like that... They get temp sensitive.
The yellow one 1981 has standard points and fires like crazy. I haven't looked at the other one. When they start and run they run great. Just not reliable, not reliable starting and can't trust them on the road, you never know when it is going to take a dump...
FI is already nearly impossible to troubleshoot and intermitten problems are ten times harder than impossible.
Especially when it's very possibly an IGNITION problem...
One could spend weeks troubleshooting the EFI before you really broke something.
Addendum to Newtons first law:
zero vehicles on jackstands, square gets a fresh 090 and 1911, cabby gets a blower.
EZ3.6 Vanagon after that.(mounted, needs everything finished) then Creamsicle.
Capn Skully wrote:
Also we are all blessed with FI because the bleeding heart environmental whackos want the government to control our lives.
Now now now, hush hush, we all like clean air, and the spoiled brats of industry who don't give a damn about what 6 billion people do to this poor planet can just go to Bhopal India and kill citizens in their sleep and make lots of money!!!!
Problem is, there is even more money to be made in Clean Air Technology, gobs and gobs of money that our current oil industry types don't have the courage or the foresight to exploit. Idiots.
Colin
