On a trip, need some troubleshooting advice

[hiram6]

Drove the Westy from GA to VA today to visit family. Made it here, but not without some adventure, so I'd like to troubleshhot this before driving back.

At completely random times, my van just dies. It happened 6 times today during the 400 mile drive. All 6 times, I was going at Interstate speeds (65+) and the van just dies. I have an automatic, so all 6 times, I was able to shift into neutral, and immediately restart the van while coasting, then re-engage drive, and continue on.

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to when it did it, multiple tanks of gas, one time it did this, I had just filled up 30 miles or so before, another time I was at a quarter tank. Temp gauge and volt gauges stayed where they should be, and otherwise she ran great.

Any ideas? I have my basic toolkit with me including multimeter!!

Btw, stock 1.9L with the Digijet. Only mod to the fuel system is a resistor on the fuel pump about 6 months ago to quieten the whining fuel pump.
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1985 Westy, 1.9L automatic (Daisy)
1996 Mazda Miata
1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.9 Limited

You can't lie around on the beach and drink rum all day.................unless you start first thing in the morning.

[jakehenes]

whine in fuel pump may also be that it is wearing out....next time you drive check to see if it feels hot

[kirsplat]

This could be a faulty ignition switch, loose wiring in the Hall sensor/distributor, or it could be a bad connection at the coil

If the black housing for the Hall wiring is loose, zip tie it to the dizzy.

Inspect your wiring and connections at the coil including the grounds.

Also your fuel pump relay may be on the outs and you could try swapping the ignition and fuel pump relays to see if that helps.

Good luck,


Chris
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86 Syncro|EJ253|Carat

[Bassyaks]

I had something like that happen with a rabbit. it turned out to be something in the fuel tank that would cover the outlet by suction then the engine died and the suction was release and the object fell off the pick up, then down the road it was picked up again and the same thing happened. The foreign object was the small seal that's under the cap of a fuel additive bottle, it just floats around until the pickup grabs it.

Look for some thing that shuts down with temp, possible coil?
also look at the wiring to the distribitor

Good Luck Steve

[hiram6]

Thanks for the ideas. I'll give it a look later today. I'll take a very close look at the wiring around the dizzy. A few weeks ago I had a belt break, so it slapped around back there near the distributor. That may be connected to this new malady.
_________________
1985 Westy, 1.9L automatic (Daisy)
1996 Mazda Miata
1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.9 Limited

You can't lie around on the beach and drink rum all day.................unless you start first thing in the morning.

[kshbaja]

I had something similar happen, except instead of restarting while still rolling I had to wait an hour on the side of the interstate. The problem was a flaking ignition switch. When it would flake, it would cut power to the ecu/fuel pump relays and the fuel pump would shut off. The engine would turn over all day but it wouldn't start.

This sounds like it might be a bit tough to diagnose with such a short failure interval. The ignition switch is pretty easy to replace though, so if you have one in your bag o' spares, you might try and swap it out and see if the problem goes away.

If you could get it to stay in the failed state for longer, a proper diagnosis would include confirming no power to fuel pump and then checking input voltage into the relays. Off hand I am not sure which terminal on the relay is from the ignition switch.

In my case I think what triggered the failure was running with my headlights on all day. I think my wiring is good **and** I have the VC relay kit installed, so I am guessing/hoping the switch was on its way out and the 12 hours or so of running power to the relay finally killed it. When I finally removed the switch I found the terminal on the headlight circuit showed visible melting.
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1986 Westfalia

[thummmper]

next time it happens, pull over and unplug your oxy sensor. see if it runs then.

[hdenter]

My money says it is something electrical that resets or is initiated with start up. A simple loose wire would not magicaly reconnect and allow a restart right away. I'll double down and say fuel pump relay.
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'79 triple white convertible bug
'84 sunroof vanagon
'85 weekender

[hiram6]

Well, haven't had a chance to do any Sherlocking on it, since it hasn't repeated the behavior. I'll be driving back to GA on Sunday, we'll see how she does then.
_________________
1985 Westy, 1.9L automatic (Daisy)
1996 Mazda Miata
1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.9 Limited

You can't lie around on the beach and drink rum all day.................unless you start first thing in the morning.

[Wildthings]

Can you just turn the ignition on and off and get the same results. Not sure what additional benefit you would get by throwing it in neutral and then using the starter.

Get yourself a jumper set up so you can feed power directly from the alternator to your FI and fuel pump relays, thus bypassing the ignition switch. It would be nice to have a jumper with an inline fuse so you don't burn anything up if you accidentally ground it out.

The O2 circuitry will usually cause an engine to sputter, but not die totally. By killing the switch you would be causing the circuitry to reset. If it were something to do with the O2 feed back system, I would think it would happen more often than you are seeing though.

[hiram6]

I have throw it in neutral to be able to engage the starter. If I'm quick I can shift to neutral, cycle off/on the ignition switch to restart it, and shift back to drive, all while losing about 10mph of speed.
_________________
1985 Westy, 1.9L automatic (Daisy)
1996 Mazda Miata
1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.9 Limited

You can't lie around on the beach and drink rum all day.................unless you start first thing in the morning.

[Wildthings]