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Tue Dec 21, 2004 11:01 am

'82 vanagon. Here's the scoop:

Every now and then, the light for the heat/air control panel comes on for several minutes at a time. Sometimes the radio goes off for a split second. The seat belt warning light is always irregularly on/off for varying lengths. The turn signal sometimes stays lit instead of blinking. The wipers on intermittent will stop mid-sweep.

This problem occurs most often at low idle and with the brake pedal depressed immediately after start up, but doesn't exclusively happen then.

Any ideas where to start? I'm totally stumped.

Tue Dec 21, 2004 1:26 pm

While you might consider this bus to Steven King for his next book, you might whip out your Bentley to see if these things have a common connection to a wiring circuit or perhaps are adjacent in the fues box panel.

I like a short, broken wire, poor ground, bad connection in there somewhere.

Tue Dec 21, 2004 2:33 pm

Grounds to dash any good? How about the main power going to the fuse box? Got to start somewhere.

Tue Dec 21, 2004 3:07 pm

This is my #1 VW rant... electricals. Seems like they went out of their way to make it difficult.

Start with your fuse panel and relays. Pull each one, inspect for corrosion, put a dab of vaseline on the contact and reinstall. As long as they're out you may want to hit the contacts with a very fine sandpaper or steel wool (vaccum/blow out the itty-bitty fragments).

Then check the connections in the wiring starting with where they junction to the fuse box. Try to locate your grounds and ensure they are secure. breaking and making these connections (with scouring and vaseline) is a good idea too.

It really does sound like either a ground fault or a ground fault combined with a bad switch/load.

Sry can't be more specific.

Mike!

Tue Dec 21, 2004 4:10 pm

Sounds like the ignition switch. It's usually the culprit when you start having wild electrical glitches all at once that are seemingly non- related.

Tue Dec 21, 2004 6:57 pm

:P :P Grounding problem.....as assured as God made little red reindeers, you have a ground that is screwy.

I'd start with the battery, make sure everything is grounded, clean and pretty :roll:

Then reground your motor to the frame. You may have have a grounding issue at the dash, but my guess is the battery or the motor is not grounded correctly, thusly shutting off currently for a moment or two while things gets back in sync.....:wink: :wink: :wink: :mrgreen: :-({|=

Wed Dec 22, 2004 9:42 am

weinerwagen wrote: You may have have a grounding issue at the dash, but my guess is the battery or the motor is not grounded correctly, thusly shutting off currently for a moment or two while things gets back in sync....

You know, that actually makes sense. The guys who installed the engine for the PO didn't seem to know exactly what they were doing. The heater cables weren't hooked up right, nor the cooling system done correctly. It's also getting worse as I go over speed bumps and cobble stones.

I'll check the engine ground.

Sun Mar 13, 2005 2:42 pm

Well guess what it was. Come on, guess!

It was the fuel pump dying out. Add that bit of info to the WTF pile.

Sun Mar 13, 2005 5:23 pm

How did you figure that out?

Sun Mar 13, 2005 5:42 pm

Well, the van started running worse and worse, but I couldn't find a reason for it. The pump was turning, etc. I never checked for fuel pressure since I was looking for an electrical problem.

Turns out there was a big load on the pump since the impeller was doing something funky, dropping the pressure, running leanish (CHT <350, now up to 390 again), until it finally died. The pump motor still worked, but the impeller was binding. Then I did the fuel, spark, compression check since it would no longer start.

My hypothesis is that when the brake lights, stereo, and overloaded pump, etc were all on, it was enough to cut out the stereo and kick over a relay here and there by dropping the supplied voltage at low rpms.

In otherwords, I didn't figure it out, it figured itself out for me one day on the side of the road. Luckily, I was pulling into a parking space when it died. Time to clean the gas tank and put prefilter in front of the pump.