76 Bus wont run, tried everything HELP!

[patienceTHEbus]

Hi guys I have a 76 Bus that ive worked on for a year now restoring. Recently I was driving it and parked at the store went in and when I came back out it would not fire up. I have checked everything i know to and am losing the faith. It has been my daily driver for a little while and i take excessively good care of it. It cranks over but will not fire up. I have checked the entire fuel injection system(the resistance on injector plugs, the resistor bank, the double relay, the temp sensor, the resistance on AFM, pulled the injectors out to make sure it was spraying fuel, checked all wiring), the spark plugs, the coil, the distributor, the vacuum lines, the wiring going to brain, the air box including filter. The majority of wverything in engine is new and the engine itself is a rebuild with less than 1000 miles which i purchased and installed. The only problem it has had recently other than this is a few weeks ago the wiring harness from alternator to battery shorted out caught fire and melted. I replace it and the bus (Patience) has driven fine since. ANyone got any ideas. I am so frustrated right now I am about to scrap the whole thing and buy another car. I have put so much time and energy into over the last year from replacing engine, transmission, and a hundreds of dollars in extraneous parts. I could really use some new ideas Im stuck and ready to melt down myself...

[Liveonjg]

First thing, take a deep breath and relax. What you are going through is a part of bus ownership. It's par for the course when you drive a 30+ year old car. And most importantly, it's going to be ok.


It sounds to me like a vacuum leak, recheck all the hoses. You mentioned the injectors, but did you check for spark? And I know, dumb question, but also not mentioned, how much gas is in the tank?

It looks like your bus is aptly named, be patient and you'll find the trouble.

-John
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[patienceTHEbus]

Deep breath... I checked the spark, pulled the plugs and made sure they were sparking. There was minor carbon build up on them but not enough to cause issues. I was still getting good spark. I rechecked the vaccum lines and no issues there, ie no cracked hoses, everything was on tight etc. It has gas in the tank about a quarter tank. I have this gut feeling it is electrical but so far I have checked everything I know to check. I checked all the electrical connections and tightened them all down. The only thing I didnt pull out to check was the cold start valve however I did check tomake sure it was getting power to the valve. Any more ideas? Thanks for the Help!

[busdaddy]

Try pouring a spoonfull of gas into the S boot (the rubber thing between the AFM and plenum) and see if it fires, do you have access to a fuel pressure gauge and a VOM/multimeter?
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[SGKent]

Air/Fuel
Spark Igntion at the proper time (only needs to be close)
Compression

Those are the things that you need to have it run. One of them is missing. You just need to figure out which.

One thing you may want to look at is did you buy gas right before this happened? If so it could be you got a little water in the tank and while you think you are spraying fuel it is water. BusDaddy's suggestion to add a teaspoon of known good gasoline to the S-boot can help eliminate water and fuel problems.

The next item is spark. When spark is out in the open it will jump really far but when it is under compression it does not jump as far. You can have spark testing OK but with compression it can fail. When I am stumped on spark, I like to attached my timing light to the wires and crank the engine. It helps me to see whether I have spark or not, and the timing. The Distributors on VW engines can creep out enough for the distributor to come out of the drive gear. This will help determine if that has happened. If the timing light is way off or it doesn't spark at all look carefully at the ignition. Someone also could have stolen the rotor in the dist.

Compression. Probably not this one but a compression test won't hurt. At least you can eliminate it.
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[patienceTHEbus]

thanks guys, im gonna drink a beer eat some dinner and attack it again in morning. I appreciate the suggestions... will let you know what tomorrow brings!

[patienceTHEbus]

Thank you to everyone that offered suggestions and help. I picked up some starter fluid and sprayed it into boot. Bus fired up right away and ran fine after a 2-3 minutes of giving it gas. I then went back and looked at all the injectors and wiring to make sure everything was tight and I believe that I found the problem. Injector on cyl 3 was not seated all the way so i pulled it out and found out in installing it a few weeks ago i must ohave dropped the rubber o ring off of it before sliding it into place. I then put my head into engine compartment and noticed that there was a hissing coming from that injector hole while bus was running. Loss of compression i guess was main issue here along with fuel not spraying into cyl correctly but what I dont understand is why it just stopped running out of the blue like this.? I am thinking maybe it just unseated itself enough to cause it not to fire that cyl and not start? I pushed injector in and the bus ran more evenly without issues but the idle is now off and needs to be readjusted.

[VDubTech]

Throw that starting fluid in the garbage unless you'd really like to destroy that engine.
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[Desertbusman]

[John Revolver]

absolutely ditch the starter fluid.

badx20 for our engines.

Busdaddy has it right with a little gas down the s-boot. That has worked for me this past week as I am having similar starting issues.

Temp 2 sensor and my cold start valve were my weak links.

Keep at it and have fun.

These things are frustrating as all hell sometimes but thats all part of the sadistically fun experience.

[Liveonjg]

[patienceTHEbus]

thanks for the tips on starter fluid, and everyone elses kind words. If it was just another vehicle to me or anyone else I dont suppose any of us would drive one.

[Desertbusman]