As soon as we left the driveway, the bucking, lurching and hesitation and eventual stalling started. This bus has been very reliable over thousands of miles of nearly daily 3 season driving. I had this problem when I first bought the bus about 3 years ago. I was never able to duplicate it in order to try to fix it. Had to have it towed and the next morning it started right up and never repeated the problem. It seems to idle fine when parked. Under load of gears 1-3 (more so at shift points) it really does not want to go, fighting all the way. If I can get it into 4th, it will cruise relatively well with minor occasional bucking. It also appears to do it when warmer out. Today it was in the low 90's.
Checked for vacuum leaks, but could not detect any.
My technical knowledge is still quite primitive. It was suggested at one point it might be the Temp ll sensor. I had a spare so I decided to change it. The old one came out easily enough, the new one did not want to go back in. I was parked outside the local parts store since I need a 13mm deep socket for the job which I did not have in my toolbox. An old acquaintance who has worked on a lot of VWs happened to stop by. We finally noticed that the engine tin had 'slid' down to block the hole for the sensor by a fraction of a mm. It was hell trying to pry that up in that tight space to get the sensor seated. We finally did. And still no improvement.
I thought next that maybe a blocked fuel filter might be the problem. That wasn't it either. And I destroyed the fuel line that leads from the tank to the filter in the process. So I had to change that which was not fun.
I certainly don't want to just swap parts, but I don't know enough how to proceed logically at this point. I don't have a lot of diagnostic tools at my disposal right now either. I spent 6 hours on things that would take most of you maybe an hour to complete and now I can barely make it out of the driveway and past the house.
The kids are disappointed as am I. I really wanted to get this bus over to the campout since I would have met a few folks to help me troubleshoot. Instead, I have emptied the cooler and cracked a beer. I smell like gasoline.
I realized a short while ago that today was Friday the 13th and I speak truthfully when I say that there was a black cat in my yard this morning staring at me through the bedroom window.
![pale :pale:](./images/smilies/icon_pale.gif)
1977 2.0L FI with electronic point replacement.