[V8] Feelgood V8 story of the year

[toml99 at todomundo.com]

Soooo, I parked the 5-speed something like 4(5?) yrs ago because of leaky heater core/blower fan/weepy rack.  Since my trusty low mileage Lago auto car always started/ran/drove I just took to driving it.  3-4 months ago it got a no-start thing, so got motivated and did the Heater box on 5-speed in a clients heated garage.  Wasn’t as bad as I was expecting and since client helped, let him drive it to my house for test run.  Got to my house and all the hydraulic fluid had leaked out in 7 miles.  Got back to his his new 2 million dollar house and the custom inlayed driveway was covered with fluid.  Spent day removing stains from driveway.  Did some digging and found the hose that loops behind brake booster had a slit in it from rubbing on the coil(go check yours).  Replaced with good used and car was drivable.  Things were good.  Went thru a bunch of testing over days and Lago still had no fuel injection working.  FF to a few weeks ago and 5-speed does same thing.  Got spark/good fw sensors/etc but no fuel.  Put 12v to pump and barely audible and no flow out of hose at regulator so aha, its the pump.  Get new pump(skinny VDO style pump) and spent a whole day as had to rewire connector as it was different/trouble getting basket back in /etc.  Still no run.  12v to pump got fuel flow so old pump appeared to be bad.  Swapped fw sensors with known good as the reference sensor tested bad….got excited, but yet no start.   Cleaned all grounds.  Car ran fine a few weeks ago when I moved it to move boat, so not sure what sort of voodoo caused the reference and pump to die overnight but ?   James Rosser was up here this weekend and helped out on Saturday and by end of day, both stumped.  Got voltage here/no voltage there, blah blah.  I was gonna cave and bring it in this week to a good indy that likes the old stuff(haven’t paid a mechanic in like 25 yrs).  Today I decided to check the other stuff that I hadn’t and checked WOT switch and instead of 0 ohms it said 2.something.  Instead of adjusting it(never done) I unplugged it and car started right away and was revving.  Plugged back in and car started instantly like it used to.  In the end gonna chalk it up to some connector to motronic that just needed to get unplugged/replugged/mild corrosion.  I couldn’t find my blinker tool and James’s Vag-Com couldn’t talk to 5-speed for some reason.  Talked to Lago and no codes….Ha. So, now I just need to do the rest of hydraulic hoses/rebuilt rack that I have/fix IC and do driveshaft bearing…..I love this car why?   Anyway, it was fun to drive it.  Also after getting it running, no windows/sunroof worked.  Started testing and saw 2 pages later to test thermofuse(grey thing at bottom of fusebox)….tested fine so plugged it back in and all windows/sunroof worked….Ha.  Oh and if were gonna worry about years, belt is due.  My new strategy on Lago is gonna be unplug all moronic connectors and spray them and pray….Ha.  When I get Lago running(124K) its gonna be for sale.  If you are reading this Roger, I might even deliver it…Ha.  Tom