I finally finished up my engine swap (took a long time as I only have one
day off a week).  After a couple twists of the key, she came to life and oh,
what a relief.  Unfortunately, that quickly turned to misery.  The EXACT
same symptoms that plagued me on the previous motor were still present!  It
has a constant surge in the idle.  I replaced the entire motor with ALL the
components from the donor (ECU included-although I did try both).  I already
swapped the fuel filter (previously) so that leaves; the coil and associated
wiring, the harness (which I do have the donor one and it's uncut), and the
fuel pump.  The AFM has the capacitor upgrade and it has a new idle control
valve.  I emptied the gas tank and  I only had about a gallon left in the
tank and it had a bunch of flakes in it.  Looked like paint chips is the
best description I can give.  Desperate to actually fix something and the
need to stop the the dreaded overflow while filling up at the gas station
problem, I dropped the gas tank since I already have the parts on hand.
 True to form, most of the lines around the tank are junk after 23 years one
of the crossover plugs was out of the tank, that's why it was leaking on
fill up.  What a job.  I truly hope the bean counter at VW who saved
.00000002 DM by instructing the engineering dept to keep the hoses as short
as possible has severely arthritic hands in his old age by now.  That should
compensate me for the tortuous job at hand.  No pun intended.  It's a
horrible task to take care of.  As if I wasn't already in a mood bad enough
to sell my syncro and the wolfies out of sheer disgust with the idle problem
and the oil pressure.  Seriously, I'm thinking to myself, "Why am I under
this POS van on my only day off when I could be at the beach with my kids?"
 I'm really doubting the whole Vanagon "experience".  It's hasn't been
expensive, just grueling.
  To throw salt in the wound, I've got the oil low pressure light on.  Oil
level checked good even after a new Mahle filter and a few quarts of Mobil
1.  Oil pressure gauge reads good but I don't have new sensors in stock so
how do I turn that damn buzzer off?  I practically ripped the instrument pod
off the dash getting the cover off.  I blipped the throttle and the second
the buzzer came on I shut it down and after a few minutes, checked the oil
level.  It was still good.
  I left it up on ramps a few days just to step back from it all.  I've been
hitting the list archives and the net searching for "gas tank removal" for
tips and insight.  If anyone has any, I'd be welcome to hearing it.  I just
bought some extra fuel line, clamps, and stocked up on oil.  BTW,
Discount/Advance Auto has a nice sale on Castrol GTX (all grades).  I think
it was $11 for a gallon jug.  It's always been a pretty good dino oil so at
$3 a quart it could be a good deal.  Just FYI.

Later,

TJ