alexherz0g
10-02-2025, 04:28 PM
Hi all,
Sorry for the many posts recently. I’m trying to get my van running (well) after it drove over 2,500 miles home from where I picked it up. It made the journey but needed serious maintenance. The van burned oil really badly and had issues under load on the highway, by the end of the trip I couldn’t get the van to go over 50mph or really into 5th gear at all unless going downhill.
Since then, I did a lot of replacement/work at once. I know this isn’t the best practice but there was a lot that was urgently needed before I wanted to even drive the van again, so I did the following…
-replaced all the valve seals that I could get to without removing the head (it ended up being about half of them). With having the valve cover off I also replaced the top grommets, and gasket
-replaced the fuel filter, and upon inspecting the lines and tank I found a leaking gasket from one of the vent return lines, as well as a vent line on top (the one with the little valve/filter looking thing attached) to be completely unplugged from the tank. So I reconnected that and replaced the gasket
-replaced spark plugs, plug tube gaskets, plug wires and distributor cap and rotor. Plugs were extremely fouled from how much oil was being burned for who knows how long, and tube gaskets were rock hard and letting significant oil into the tube.
After all of these replacements, I was having trouble getting the van to start up again. I did prime the system with the jumper terminal. It would crank and crank but no fire. I tried spraying some carb cleaner into the intake and it fired so I figured it was most likely a fuel problem. I kept trying and it would try to fire after cranking a while but would still not start. Finally after wiggling/removing some of the sensors like the thermo sensor and cold start timing sensor the engine finally fired up with the thermo sensor disconnected. I let it idle for a while and when I tried plugging the thermo sensor back in the engine would start to run rough and want to die, I’d unplug it and the engine would idle up. After the engine got up to temp I plugged the thermo sensor back in and the engine idled pretty well. It does seem to have a bit of a steady surge, about a 2 second up and down wavering idle.
But it seemed healthy enough to try and drive, it would rev fine and come back down to idle and run smoothly. but when I installed the passenger cover and put it in gear to drive it sputtered and died under load. It would start back up, idle fine, then die under load again trying to back into my parking spot. The last clue I have is that after running, when I opened the fuel cap to see if there was any pressure in the system, a very large hiss and woosh of vapor came out. Much more than seems normal. Though I don’t really have anything to compare it to because before with the vent disconnected from the gas tank, when I opened the gas cap there was no sound at all.
There are clearly some issues with the sensors that I need to figure out, but the fuel system seems to be a big issue and the next thing I’m going to try and address. When I installed the fuel filter, I bent the top of the filter tightening the banjo bolt. It doesn’t seem like it’s bad enough to cause a flow issue but I attached a photo anyways. I also attached a photo of the fuel hose that connects to the bottom of the fuel filter, and the hard line leading back to the tank. Are these similar to brake hoses where the internal rubber can deteriorate and/or collapse causing flow restriction? I suppose it could also be a sensor sending the wrong information and leaning out the mixture.
I also replaced my plug wires with NGK plugs, have people had issues with these not being the right depth to click all the way in to the spark plug? I tested for spark with the plug out but I’m not convinced the plug wire is staying fully seated on the plug while the engine is running. That could be causing weak spark, but I don’t think that would account for the excess backpressure in the fuel system…
Sorry for the long winded dilemma, any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks Y'all
Sorry for the many posts recently. I’m trying to get my van running (well) after it drove over 2,500 miles home from where I picked it up. It made the journey but needed serious maintenance. The van burned oil really badly and had issues under load on the highway, by the end of the trip I couldn’t get the van to go over 50mph or really into 5th gear at all unless going downhill.
Since then, I did a lot of replacement/work at once. I know this isn’t the best practice but there was a lot that was urgently needed before I wanted to even drive the van again, so I did the following…
-replaced all the valve seals that I could get to without removing the head (it ended up being about half of them). With having the valve cover off I also replaced the top grommets, and gasket
-replaced the fuel filter, and upon inspecting the lines and tank I found a leaking gasket from one of the vent return lines, as well as a vent line on top (the one with the little valve/filter looking thing attached) to be completely unplugged from the tank. So I reconnected that and replaced the gasket
-replaced spark plugs, plug tube gaskets, plug wires and distributor cap and rotor. Plugs were extremely fouled from how much oil was being burned for who knows how long, and tube gaskets were rock hard and letting significant oil into the tube.
After all of these replacements, I was having trouble getting the van to start up again. I did prime the system with the jumper terminal. It would crank and crank but no fire. I tried spraying some carb cleaner into the intake and it fired so I figured it was most likely a fuel problem. I kept trying and it would try to fire after cranking a while but would still not start. Finally after wiggling/removing some of the sensors like the thermo sensor and cold start timing sensor the engine finally fired up with the thermo sensor disconnected. I let it idle for a while and when I tried plugging the thermo sensor back in the engine would start to run rough and want to die, I’d unplug it and the engine would idle up. After the engine got up to temp I plugged the thermo sensor back in and the engine idled pretty well. It does seem to have a bit of a steady surge, about a 2 second up and down wavering idle.
But it seemed healthy enough to try and drive, it would rev fine and come back down to idle and run smoothly. but when I installed the passenger cover and put it in gear to drive it sputtered and died under load. It would start back up, idle fine, then die under load again trying to back into my parking spot. The last clue I have is that after running, when I opened the fuel cap to see if there was any pressure in the system, a very large hiss and woosh of vapor came out. Much more than seems normal. Though I don’t really have anything to compare it to because before with the vent disconnected from the gas tank, when I opened the gas cap there was no sound at all.
There are clearly some issues with the sensors that I need to figure out, but the fuel system seems to be a big issue and the next thing I’m going to try and address. When I installed the fuel filter, I bent the top of the filter tightening the banjo bolt. It doesn’t seem like it’s bad enough to cause a flow issue but I attached a photo anyways. I also attached a photo of the fuel hose that connects to the bottom of the fuel filter, and the hard line leading back to the tank. Are these similar to brake hoses where the internal rubber can deteriorate and/or collapse causing flow restriction? I suppose it could also be a sensor sending the wrong information and leaning out the mixture.
I also replaced my plug wires with NGK plugs, have people had issues with these not being the right depth to click all the way in to the spark plug? I tested for spark with the plug out but I’m not convinced the plug wire is staying fully seated on the plug while the engine is running. That could be causing weak spark, but I don’t think that would account for the excess backpressure in the fuel system…
Sorry for the long winded dilemma, any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks Y'all