Bus won't stay running!

[edhnb]

Hi everyone!

We took the bus camping this weekend, and on the drive back today, she just wouldn't stay running.

Here is all of the information I have at this time...

We drove from the Sacramento area to the foothills, which is about 4' ft elevation. The bus was loaded down pretty good.. and it was 95 degrees out. I did not push it at all on the way up. No driving out of the ordinary.

We used the accessory lights/fridge/etc.. the entire time while camping. These are hooked to a deep cycle battery on their own circuit.

This morning the bus fired up fine, and we started to leave the campground. I noticed it stalled as I put the clutch in to go over a speed bump. and I just chalked it up to the engine being cold.

It started back up, and we kept going. I did notice that the bus seemed sluggish, but I figured it was just all of the crap we had loaded in it.

So we drove about 45 minutes home.. and the bus was just poopin along. I babied the throttle all the way home figuring something was wrong.

Once we get off the freeway, it stalled at every light, and will just not stay running. It was also sputtering and backfiring a bit. When I get home it stalls again in the driveway. I notice that some oil is dripping from the passenger side valve cover.. but am not yet sure where the source is, although a cursory look is showing the engine looking nice and clean.

Soooo.. before I go tearing into it, I figured I would test all of the pro's on this forum and get their opinions on what it could be.

Any ideas are appreciated!

Bus Info:
1977 Riviera
2.0 Fuel Injected
Petronix, but other than that pretty much bone stock.
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1977 Asi Riviera

[edhnb]

It looks like my valve cover on that side was loose. The spring mechanism that holds the cover on was not seated right on the frontmost side.. causing the cover to be a little bit loose.

I have no idea how this could have happened, but it does explain the oil leak. Could this also cause the rough running?
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1977 Asi Riviera

[Wildthings]

[edhnb]

ok, so after reading a bunch on thesamba and air-cooled.net, I figured this out. It turned out to be a combination of 2 issues. One was the leak in the valve cover, and the other was a loose negative connection to the battery.. causing bad FI performance.

I pulled the valve cover, replaced the gasket (I keep a stack on hand), and tightened the battery connections up... and the bus is again running like a top.

All thanks to these forums.
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1977 Asi Riviera

[SGKent]

the fuel injection system pulls crankcase gases out into the S-boot. If the rocker cover is loose enough to let air in, it gets pulled through the engine and into the S-boot as a vacuum leak.

Where did you go camping? We like to head up to Yosemite but it has been too hot lately.
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George Carlin:
"Most people don't know what they're doing, and a lot of them are really good at it."

Skills@EuroCarsPlus:
"never time to do it right but always time to do it twice"

[edhnb]

We went to Sly Park (Jenkinson Lake).. doing one more trip on Labor Day and then pulling the engine for some good fun work on the bus for the next month or two.
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1977 Asi Riviera