'84 Camper: engines kills sometimes (rarely) while driving

[Kevin]

Every now and then, i'll be driving along at any speed and its like someone hit a kill switch. i simply turn the key off and then start it as normal and it runs fine... what is that all about? any ideas?

Kevin in Utah

[earthmuffin]

Welcome to The Samba Kevin. Sound like you have a little case of the dreaded "vanagon syndrome". Try doing a little search on the web and in the vanagon.com mailing list. You are not the first to encounter this issue of wellness. Or take two of these:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=53905
and call us in the morning!
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This thread SUCKS!!!

[Tram]

"Vanagon Syndrome" or "Mystery Miss" doesn't usually kill the engine, just causes it to buck like a bronco. It occurs MOST OFTEN in '86 and later 2,1s, although not unknown in pre '86 models. It even occurs occasionally in older Busses and VW/Audi FWD cars from that era with air flow meters. This particular problem sounds like an electrical interruption to the ignition, where "Mystery Miss" feels more like running out of gas. Two likely scientific wild- ass guesses would be the Hall generator (electronic ignition sender) in the distributor, or a bum ignition switch. In a Vanagon, a failing switch will sometimes manifest itself with a whole sloo of seemingly unrelated electrical failures- Wipers, horn, headlights, fuel injection, and ignition will appear to have intermittent problems, and the car will seemingly be inhabited by ghosts. So, if you're experiencing other strange symptoms at times, too, the switch could be faulty. I've seen so many of these Vanagon- style ignition switches fail (They're on all VW models from about 1972, Audis, and BMWs of the '70s- '80s) that I recommend replacing them as a matter of course every 10 years or 100k miles, whether it needs it or not. Replace the electrical part only- it's around $25.
Like I said, the other most likely suspect is the Hall generator. The three wires going into the distributor get brittle and break. The plastic plug-in on the side of the distributor falls apart allowing the wires to ground out on the distributor housing, killing ignition. There's also a little ignition module that can go bad, but that's almost never occasional/ intermittent. It's either good or it's bad. If your Vanoggin has a tachometer, if it dives to zero as the engine quits, that's a slam- dunk for an ignition issue right there. Hope this helps, and i hope you sole the problem soon.