Here is an item for everyones interest.  My '87 Westy has been running 
crappy for the last few days and seemed to be getting worse.  Backfiring 
through the exhaust had me thinking burnt valve.  Yesterday I took the time 
to start digging and find out what was going on.  Looked first at the 
distributor cap to find it full of dirt and the carbon seized up in its hole. 
 Cleaned the cap, rotor and inners, then stretched the carbon spring and put 
the cap back in place and started up the engine.  Seemed better but still 
popping through the exhaust.  
       Removed spark plugs to have a look see and found plugs at # 2 and # 3 
cylinders had cracked and missing porcelain.  What's that all about ?  The 
colour of the plugs were good and these plugs Bosch WR7DTC's were put in 
22,400 km ago !  STRANGE !  Anyways, I took a compression reading while I had 
the plugs out and found #1 - 125 lbs, #2 - 140 lbs, #3 - 120 lbs, #4 - 135 
lbs.  Not perfect but acceptable for an engine with 350,000 km on the clock 
and original engine.  Put new Bosch WR7DTC's in and stated up the engine and 
VOILA !  Running great again !
            Found my oxy sensor not working in the process so unpluged it and 
the engine seems to run fine with it unplugged. But, stumbles at idle with it 
plugged in.  Will order up a new one.  The one that's in there now is the 
generic one from The Bus Depot put in 47,003 km ago.

Cheers�

Frank Condelli
Almonte, Ontario, Canada
<A HREF="http://members.aol.com/BusFusion/bfhome.htm">BusFusion</A> a VW Camper event in Almonte, June 7-10
'87 Westy & Lionel Trains
Member: <A HREF="http://www.vanagon.com/">Vanagon List</A>, <A HREF="http://www.bcn.net/~limbo/">LiMBO</A>, <A HREF="http://www.westfalia.qc.ca/CIW_English.asp">IWCCC</A> & Capital City VW Club 
Vanagon/Vanagon Westfalia Service in the Ottawa Valley
<A HREF="http://members.aol.com/Fkc43/stebro.htm">STEBRO/Vanagon Stainless Steel Mufflers</A> �
<A HREF="http://members.aol.com/Fkc43/busindex.html">Frank Condelli & Associates</A> or http://frankcondelli.com

 

[text/html]