This is an inquiry about a vanagon that's not mine. There's a guy
around town who works as a handyman. He bought a vanagon--it appears to
be an 87--for $400 at goodwill. It has run fine until now. He knows I
have two, and he sees me around town, and he stopped me today to ask if
I knew what was wrong with his. He knows very little about cars in
general, nothing about VWs, and doesn't have the money to take it to a
shop and get it diagnosed.

Here's what he's told me: the car runs OK cold and warm, but quits when
it gets hot until it cools off. He's been told it's a sensor in the
distributor (hall effect is the only one I know of) by one of his
friends but I suspect the coil. I had a coil once that had a break in
it. The coil would expand under the effects of heat and thus open the
break. Cooling would allow the broken wires to contact each other and
then it would work again until it got hot.

One clue from him is that it ran very rough prior to the first time it
cut out, making him think it was a clogged fuel filter or bad fuel
pump.

I asked him to see if he could check the coil, but also told him I'd
ask on this list. Of all the things I've done to a vanagon, ignition
troubleshooting has not been one of them, so any help would be
appreciated.

Thanks,

Jim