[Vwdiesel] FW: Need diesel Vanagon advice/help (longish)

[Roger Brown]

I would check that the throttle is getting pulled all the way open with the accelerator pedal.  I had a similar issue in my '82
Caddy turned out to be a worn accelerator pedal bushing:
	http://www.4crawler.com/Diesel/ForSale/AccelPedalBushing.shtml#Introduction
Not sure how the Vanagon is setup but something to check.  

Mary Beth and Chris Geiser wrote:
> 
> Can anyone here give Ken a little advice (see message below)?  He is not on
> this list, so you'd have to pmail him at:
> kenwilfy at COMCAST.NET
> I think he's figured out the problem, but I've never taken off a throttle
> arm, so can't tell him how to rearrange...
> 
> Thanks,
> Chris
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon at GERRY.VANAGON.COM] On Behalf Of
> Ken Wilford
> Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 7:24 PM
> To: vanagon at GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Need diesel Vanagon advice/help (longish)
> 
> I have an 83 diesel Vanagon with a 5 speed transmission.  When I got it,
> it had a bum engine and we took the engine out of an 82 diesel Rabbit.
> The rabbit belonged to a friend of mine and I had driven it many times,
> and also I had driven it probably less than 500 miles before I pulled
> the engine out and put it in the van.  It always had good power (for a
> diesel rabbit).  The car zipped along and didn't struggle on the road.
> However in the van it is a much different story.  It does not accelerate
> at all.  It struggles to get up to 40 mph and then if you had a really
> long flat straight you might be able to get it up to 55 mph and put it
> in 5th gear but you are flooring the accelerator the entire time.
> 
> Now we have some options:
> 1. This is normal, and I just have to live with it.
> 2. This is not normal and even though the van has low power it can do
> better than it is doing.
> 
> I really don't have any experience with driving a diesel Vanagon so
> perhaps some of you out there can chime in who actually own and drive them.
> 
> Now for the advice part.  When we put the diesel engine into the
> Vanagon, it was running so well, I didn't want to mess anything up.  So
> instead of swapping over the diesel Vanagon fuel injection pump, I left
> the Rabbit one on the engine.  However this required us to swap the
> throttle arm on top of the fuel pump from the Vanagon pump to the Rabbit
> pump.  When we were going to do this I though the arm could only go on
> one way.  That there was a notch in it or something that would prevent a
> dummy like me from taking it off and putting it on wrong.  However there
> is not.  The splined shaft is the same all the way around so you can put
> the linkage arm on pretty much any way you want.  But the pump itself
> cares which way the arm is on and it will not work properly without it
> in a specific orientation.  So I am suspecting that our power problem
> could be due to the fact that this linkage arm is not installed
> properly.  Therefore the throttle is not getting the chance to open up
> all of the way and therefore we are not getting the full power that the
> engine can deliver.  It would be like trying to drive with a rock under
> the pedal.  So my question is, is there a way to know that you have the
> throttle arm on, in the proper orientation?  If so how?
> 
> If the throttle arm is not the culprit are there any other ways to get a
> little more out of this engine to make the van more driveable?
> 
> Any and all advice is much appreciated.  Thanks for listening and caring.
> 
> Ken Wilford
> John 3:16
> www.vanagain.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Vwdiesel at vwfans.com
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--
   Roger

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