Intermittently dying van, while driving

[Joey]

Yesterday I was driving on the lougheed hwy and while I was taking my exit the van lost power and came back on. This was a matter of seconds. About 500 meters later the van just flat out died. So I tried starting it (10 seconds on and 15 off) to not burn out the starter. Pumping the accelerator did help it finally roar to life at 3000 rpm. With the foot on the break and still revving it at around 2000 rpm now, I shifted into gear and rocketed off!

So what happened? I know that I did get the fuel filter replaced about two months ago and it’s been having a similar problem, but not that it just dies completely, just a loss of power occasionally. And about 1 month ago I did the fuel lines, hard and soft. Could it be a problem with fuel delivery or spark? By the way, the van is a 1985 Volkswagen Vanagon.

Thanks for reading!

Joey

Topic

[spelunkerd]

Intermittent problems are the worst, since your problem and solution may be gone when you want to work on it. If the car restarts, you may find yourself in a position of trying to diagnose an unreliable car at the side of the road. I would make up a little diagnostic kit to bring with you in the car to help narrow the problem down. In the kit I would bring something to check for spark while you turn the engine over. That’s easy if you have somebody else in the car, not so easy alone, especially with the engine in the back. If it were me I would bring my hand switch to allow remote starting, a timing light, some quickstart to see if spraying it into the carb helped it to start, and a few hand tools. It may be something simple like a dirty carburetor or bad points/distributor. Clues you find at the roadside may really help to narrow it down.

Regarding your suspicion about the fuel pump, it would be easy to measure pressure at the rail to assess fuel pump output. Bad gas is harder to exclude.

[college man]

If you suspect the fuel filter.Take it off and blow through it
the opposite way to see if any junk comes out.

[EricTheCarGuy]

If you suspect a fuel pressure issue it’s easy enough to check with a fuel pressure gauge. As for the fuel filter those are easy enough to change.

Personally I’d stay away from the Daewoo. Considering they went out of business some years ago parts may be hard to come by in the not so distant future. Also, when those cars break, they break. At least that’s what I’ve seen. Honda’s are great, sometimes, depends on how they were taken care of. I’d look for late 90’s. The 2000’s weren’t so great for Honda but they seem to be a little better now. Toyota is also another good one. Either way keep us posted.

[Author]

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