Troubleshooting Overview

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Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
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Troubleshooting Overview

Post by Amskeptic » Sun Sep 03, 2006 3:05 am

Troubleshooting is perhaps the single most critical component of enjoying your classic old Volkswagen. Hitting the road with confidence does not require a truckload of spare parts for every contingency, so much as a solid foundation in discovery techniques and a couple of essential items.

We will use the up-river down-river metaphor for helping you determine where to jump in the discovery process. Please devote a little time to asking yourself,
Why Am I Here?
Do not merely accept an instruction to begin your search at "x."
Try to figure out . . . why here?
This will help train you to jump in the river at the correct spot.
It is a memorable thing to overhaul your carburetors and replace the fuel pump as well, only to discover too late that your gas tank was dry.

Think of the river as one with perhaps quite a few tributaries.
Your engine for example has four:
I . air supply,
II . fuel supply,
III . ignition,
IV . the mechanical "air pump", your actual engine long block.

Your brakes have two or three,
I . the hydraulic system,
II . the friction generators,
III . perhaps a brake booster.

If the riverbed is dry, you can start your search way upstream.
If it is merely low, you will need to find where you lost a contributary.

Example:
If the car won't start AND there are no idiot lights, you can safely start at the battery. If it does turn over briskly r-r-r-r-r-r-r, then jump in downstream at the air/fuel/ignition branch, don't waste your time cleaning battery terminals (unless you feel like it, no one is stopping you).

Describing Symptoms:
You will do better to describe the problem without too much guesswork diagnostic vocabulary. This is useful for your own conversation with yourself, not to mention online assistance.

ex. "it turns over slowly and occasionally pops through the air filter" is describing actual on the spot symptoms, YES, we can work with that, and your own mind will be able to figure it out when you think of symptoms rather than guesswork solutions.

But ... "I think the starter motor is going out and there might be a blocked jet in the carb" is a NO.

In each technical forum, we will develop a specific glossary of terms with y'alls input, to help us all be on the same page. For example, when describing your engine's refusal to start we must distinguish with little pixels and inadequate words what is/is not happening:
"turn over"... means the engine rotating by means of the starter
"catch" . . . means you are hearing combustion events
"pop" . . . means a combustion event through the carburetor
"backfire"... means partial combustion blasting out the tail pipe
"stall" means it did run at first, for however long
"miss" means erratic or steady little losses of power

Reading Through Suggestions:

As many of you have ascertained, there is a cascade of internet advice at the ready raining down upon you at the smallest question. I promise you that this is very good ... and it is bad.

The Good ...

a) if you are already comfortable with mechanicking, and you sense that you are close to figuring it out, then speed-reading through the confetti of suggestions will help prime your mind and narrow your search.

b) the real answer might be waiting for you in the midst

c) it is heart-warming to witness all the helpful people

The Bad ...

a) if you are unsure of your mechanicking, you will drown in the roiling scrum of hopelessly complicated suggestions and conflicting advice and it can overwhelm your mind and explode your sanity.

b) the real answer might be waiting for you in the midst and this will drive you mad knowing that nirvana was so close.

c) it is annoying as heck to deal with the cocktail chatter of competing keyboard master mechanics while your car remains dead, dead, dead.

Interpreting Suggestions:

a) Understand that you are the master of your own solution. Do not expect anyone to hold your hand through this, and do not under any circustance give your intuition over to some pixelated expert who is just sooo sure that he has figured out what is wrong with your car without ever seeing it.

b) Keep your own mind, your own inquiry absolutely organized.
There is no reason, no matter your inexperience, to just flit about from one possibility to another, like a lost puppy in the middle of the mall. If you wrote that your car is dead, and you tried to start it, and the engine turned over without catching, you shall roundly ignore he who suggests that you replace the starter "because the last time my car didn't start it was the starter..."
You will use your own logic to determine that the battery is good, it has been cranking the engine over just fine. If someone mistakenly thinks that you have the "hot start issue" where VWs refuse to start (turn over) when hot, you shall ignore the admonishment to replace the ignition switch or install a hot start relay ... no, your starter was working just fine, the ignition switch correctly passed along your request.

to be cont...)

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