[Vwdiesel] Stall during wet & wooly weather

[Gary Shea]

Hi Duncan --

You're going to get lots of answers to this one.  Your engine has is
exactly one electrical requirement (assuming it's not a TDI), and that
is the fuel cut-off solenoid on the pump, which must have 12V at all
times or it kills the engine INSTANTLY.  As for how rain could affect
that, I don't really know.  If you had a serious short, a fuse would have
blown, but it didn't... I doubt if this has anything to do with the
cut-off solenoid, although it's impossible to say for sure.

I wonder if the air/water mixture was so intense in that weather that
the engine inhaled a fair amount of water, some got hung up somewhere
(now I'm really reaching!) and with the sloshing of the stop, some got
sucked in?

Fortunately, there are much better mechanics that me on this list, so
with any luck we'll both learn something ;)

        Gary

[2002-02-08 11:43 -0800] Duncan L. Forbes (duncan.forbes at ints.com) wrote:
> Hey all, weird thing happened to me last night. I was on my way home from
> work, it was a very wild evening with high winds (60MPH) and lots of rain. I
> got off the interstate and at the stop light when I came to a halt my car
> hesitated and stalled. It then even though it was warm from 30 minutes of
> driving wouldn't start. I checked this and that under the hood and tried
> starting several more times. No go. So I sat and contemplated what to do for
> a bit and then just because I am stubborn tried it one more time and it
> started right up.
>
> Now, as I know that I was not overheating and feel confident that my
> injectors and pump are all in good working condition (having just checked
> all that stuff out a few months ago), my theory was that the weather
> combined with my wiring harness was the culprit. My wiring harness is 18
> years old and is rotting apart, lots of cracks in the wire casing and even
> some bare spots were the casing has completely cracked away. I have put
> electrical tape over any exposed wire that I can see.
>
> Could water shorting wires on my harness have caused it to  stall and not
> start? I didn't really think that a warm diesel needed any electricity to
> start and run. Is this a logical conclusion or could I be looking at
> something else?
>
> Duncan (Perplexed in Portland)