Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings Minnesota 3
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 7:50 am
There will be more asteriks. I had left the miz with a couple of questions still swirling in my mind, namely, will the self- adjusters on VanaWhite Vanagon behave?* Will the alternator actually charge?* Am I going to find myself riddled with call-backs as my mind/replacement parts continue to deteriorate/get cheaper still?*
Here at Grifftenstein's new spread (and it is a spread, with the lower quarters/workshop down the hill and the big house up the hill), we dove into a familiar sight:
Yes, his factory dual carbs which I had pressed upon the poor innocent were misbehaving (see above: behave*). Unfortunately, they were misbehaving quite strangely. How on Earth, for example, could the engine have some silly high idle with the central idling circuit shut down at the Big Air Screw? Yet, it would die dead if I disconnected the central idling circuit solenoid? Ever try to adjust factory dual carbs with a silly high idle coming from nowhere? I was so lost* in muttering confusion, that Grifftenstein calmly decided that maybe he could work on the poptop seal:
I decided finally to remove the left carburetor to SEE what this bizarre anomaly was about. I saw it all right:
Some casting plug had popped off on poor Grifftenstein last summer on a trip, and the mechanics called to the rescue had indeed managed to get him home with this gushing air leak after playing with a lot of screws. We stuck the plug back in, sweged the opening, and looked forward to better running, but alas* the carburetors were still feeling sick. Grifftenstein gamely promised to look into it further as I peeled out of there after a fine dinner in the Big House Dining Hall. I had promised to look at another Vanagon* the very next morning, the Vanagon belonging to the mystery guest's son, the mystery guest who had shown up at the miz while we were, I dunno, working on brakes and alternators?*
The son of the mystery guest (who was not a mystery guest after all, but an unremembered car show conversation) djmiller, had a 1982 Vanagon inherited from a man who was fastidious in the care of his prized Vanagon. It was beautiful, original, low miles, and it would not start. I was, of course, intrigued, but suffering anew these questions of whether or not I am cut out for this work (see: * )
Arrived at djmiller's house and began my diagnosis free of the usual braggadocio. The symptom was that it would fire, run for a few seconds then die. That told me that the ignition system was OK. I figured that the fuel pump contacts might not be keeping the pump running.
"I thought it was the ECU, the injectors won't pulse, so I replaced the ECU, but that didn't fix it," said djmiller.
Fuel pump contacts were fine, pump was running when the wiper was moved. Yet, the engine would not fire past the initial start. Maybe the cold start valve was offering just enough of a spritz to get things rotating, but the injectors were not offering any subsequent fuel. I hot-wired the cold start valve with a 9 volt battery and it clicked, but the engine did not want to run on that. Got my test lamp out, and asked djmiller to crank the engine while I checked the injectors for a pulse. Yes no pulse. But we had a pulse from the trigger wire #1 on the coil to the ECU.
"Could two ECUs be bad?" asked djmiller.
Remembering that doozy back in July 2007 (soulful66) where I had almost replaced my first ECU ever but discovered that the trigger wire from the coil was not properly plugged in the ECU plug, I checked the ECU plug. A little tatty from too much testing, but all continuities checked out. Djmiller had a chart of all of his prior continuity tests. This guy has done his homework, and is relying on me to get this thing running? Good grief. *
Ever had two conversations going on at once? One is the "public" conversation, the one where you valiantly attempt to sound professional, while the other is that tight inner self-flagellating shaming destructive balls-to-the-wall attempt to destroy your last vestiges of self-respect? Me too.
But curiosity won the war. Yes, I had a ground path at #16 and #17 from the ECU plug. Yes, I had a ground at #5. That should have been the end of that inquiry. The ECU grounds the injectors at #16/7, but it grounds the signal making circuitry at #5. I pulled off the ground wires from the case to make sure there were no more grounds. I was looking for a short to ground. And there it was. #5 remained grounded even without the ground spade connected. To make sure, I checked NaranjaWesty's #5 ground and it duly ungrounded when I pulled the case spade.
So where was #5 grounding then?
"The oil pressure light doesn't go out," said djmiller.
"We HAVE to have functional oil pressure," snapped I.
Oh . . . there is the #5 ground wire, plugged into the oil pressure switch. Nearby, the oil pressure wire was grounded to the case.
The ECU was only grounding the signal circuit as long as there was no oil pressure. Thus, the engine would run for a few seconds then die. We decided that the previous owner had sabotaged the engine as a theft-deterrence. Heck, it was damn close to a Subsequent Owner Deterrence.
Confidence thus slightly restored, I drove to Iowa, reflecting upon the whirlwind tour of the Minnesota Contingent .
Land flattening as I headed west, sky growing more expansive, NaranjaWesty driving flawlessly between fuel filter clean-outs, the day, The Day, began to wend its way back into my consciousness.
Here at Grifftenstein's new spread (and it is a spread, with the lower quarters/workshop down the hill and the big house up the hill), we dove into a familiar sight:
Yes, his factory dual carbs which I had pressed upon the poor innocent were misbehaving (see above: behave*). Unfortunately, they were misbehaving quite strangely. How on Earth, for example, could the engine have some silly high idle with the central idling circuit shut down at the Big Air Screw? Yet, it would die dead if I disconnected the central idling circuit solenoid? Ever try to adjust factory dual carbs with a silly high idle coming from nowhere? I was so lost* in muttering confusion, that Grifftenstein calmly decided that maybe he could work on the poptop seal:
I decided finally to remove the left carburetor to SEE what this bizarre anomaly was about. I saw it all right:
Some casting plug had popped off on poor Grifftenstein last summer on a trip, and the mechanics called to the rescue had indeed managed to get him home with this gushing air leak after playing with a lot of screws. We stuck the plug back in, sweged the opening, and looked forward to better running, but alas* the carburetors were still feeling sick. Grifftenstein gamely promised to look into it further as I peeled out of there after a fine dinner in the Big House Dining Hall. I had promised to look at another Vanagon* the very next morning, the Vanagon belonging to the mystery guest's son, the mystery guest who had shown up at the miz while we were, I dunno, working on brakes and alternators?*
The son of the mystery guest (who was not a mystery guest after all, but an unremembered car show conversation) djmiller, had a 1982 Vanagon inherited from a man who was fastidious in the care of his prized Vanagon. It was beautiful, original, low miles, and it would not start. I was, of course, intrigued, but suffering anew these questions of whether or not I am cut out for this work (see: * )
Arrived at djmiller's house and began my diagnosis free of the usual braggadocio. The symptom was that it would fire, run for a few seconds then die. That told me that the ignition system was OK. I figured that the fuel pump contacts might not be keeping the pump running.
"I thought it was the ECU, the injectors won't pulse, so I replaced the ECU, but that didn't fix it," said djmiller.
Fuel pump contacts were fine, pump was running when the wiper was moved. Yet, the engine would not fire past the initial start. Maybe the cold start valve was offering just enough of a spritz to get things rotating, but the injectors were not offering any subsequent fuel. I hot-wired the cold start valve with a 9 volt battery and it clicked, but the engine did not want to run on that. Got my test lamp out, and asked djmiller to crank the engine while I checked the injectors for a pulse. Yes no pulse. But we had a pulse from the trigger wire #1 on the coil to the ECU.
"Could two ECUs be bad?" asked djmiller.
Remembering that doozy back in July 2007 (soulful66) where I had almost replaced my first ECU ever but discovered that the trigger wire from the coil was not properly plugged in the ECU plug, I checked the ECU plug. A little tatty from too much testing, but all continuities checked out. Djmiller had a chart of all of his prior continuity tests. This guy has done his homework, and is relying on me to get this thing running? Good grief. *
Ever had two conversations going on at once? One is the "public" conversation, the one where you valiantly attempt to sound professional, while the other is that tight inner self-flagellating shaming destructive balls-to-the-wall attempt to destroy your last vestiges of self-respect? Me too.
But curiosity won the war. Yes, I had a ground path at #16 and #17 from the ECU plug. Yes, I had a ground at #5. That should have been the end of that inquiry. The ECU grounds the injectors at #16/7, but it grounds the signal making circuitry at #5. I pulled off the ground wires from the case to make sure there were no more grounds. I was looking for a short to ground. And there it was. #5 remained grounded even without the ground spade connected. To make sure, I checked NaranjaWesty's #5 ground and it duly ungrounded when I pulled the case spade.
So where was #5 grounding then?
"The oil pressure light doesn't go out," said djmiller.
"We HAVE to have functional oil pressure," snapped I.
Oh . . . there is the #5 ground wire, plugged into the oil pressure switch. Nearby, the oil pressure wire was grounded to the case.
The ECU was only grounding the signal circuit as long as there was no oil pressure. Thus, the engine would run for a few seconds then die. We decided that the previous owner had sabotaged the engine as a theft-deterrence. Heck, it was damn close to a Subsequent Owner Deterrence.
Confidence thus slightly restored, I drove to Iowa, reflecting upon the whirlwind tour of the Minnesota Contingent .
Land flattening as I headed west, sky growing more expansive, NaranjaWesty driving flawlessly between fuel filter clean-outs, the day, The Day, began to wend its way back into my consciousness.