Vanagon Won’t Restart

[sambo434]

Hello - I have a 1985 Vanagon Westfalia that is nearly all original and runs great. However I’ve had intermittent issues with the Vanagon restarting if I’ve driven the van for a while, turn it off, and try to restart. This usually happens after I’ve driven a few hours into the mountains and am at a campsite. If the van is off and I try to restart (usually to reposition the van at a campsite) the van doesn’t want to start. The engine turns over and everything sounds fine. It seems that it’s a heat issue since the van will fire up after resting for 5-10 minutes however the engine temps gauge is always within range. Any ideas what could be wrong?

Thanks for the help!

[jlrftype7]

To break it down in small steps, figure out if you are missing spark or fuel.
Spark is the easiest to test since you can disconnect a plug wire, pop a good plug in it and lay on the engine , have a friend crank the engine and watch for the spark at the plug.
_________________
'68 Westy- my first VW and vehicle/Bus- long gone.- sold it to a traveling Swiss couple....
'67 Type 3 Fastback, my 2nd car- gone
'69 Semi-Auto Stick Shift Beetle-gone
2017 MINI Coopers, our current DDs
‘84 Tin Top - Hilga....Auto

[Wildthings]

Could be either your FI relay or your Fuel Pump relay, or many other things. As mentioned you need to narrow it down to either spark or fuel.

[Steve M.]

Since you just joined today - WELCOME!

I'm on a cell phone so a bit of a pain to link you to some good threads about the non-starting problem. That being said there is more info in this forum then the weight of your Westy about troubleshooting the problem and people are going to jump in with how to find the problem.

How long have you owned it and what do you know about the Fuel Injection system/ Fuel pump relay, etc., etc.?

A word of warning since you are going to be looking at the distributor - there is a 3 wire terminal connection on the forward side of the distributor near the bottom- be gentle with it. It is for the "Hall Sensor". It's 30 yrs. old and brittle. It can break easily. You shouldn't really have to mess with it.

The Google search feature will get you to these threads:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/search.php?q=Vanagon%20hot%20start%20problem
_________________
This free advice is worth exactly what you paid for it.

There are seven days in a week. Someday is not one of them.

[DuncanS]

First step is to check the wire that goes from the alternator to the starter motor. The engine moves and flexes this wire which will fail at some point and usually does in an intermittent way and often is heat related.

[Igeo]

I had a hot re-start issue on my '87. Ran great otherwise. I solved it with a set of NGK BP6ET plugs.
_________________
1987 Westfalia 2.1 WBX Manual

[Wildthings]