Van Losing Power!! Help!

[Block]

I've got a water cooled 1.9 petrol T25. The fan at the front isn't working, but that isn't a problem at the moment as it has been ok for the past year just doing short distances. My problem came last week when i drove for approximately 25 minutes and the engine started to miss and lose power in 4th. This the got worse and worse for the next 15 minutes until i was crawling along at 15mph. As I pulled over to let the queue of traffic past the engine cut out all together and it wouldn't restart. I left it for about 10 minutes and it started again and was fine for a while until the same thing happened!

Oil and water were fine. I've changed the fuel filter and checked all the fuel pipes that I can get to and the fuel pump, but its still the same. Someone suggested to me to check the carb, but I have not been able to undo the bolts to get it off (and to be honest I wouldn't know what I was looking at!)

Does anyone have any advice or experienced this before as at the moment I'm banging my head against the wall!

[Fritz]

I could sit here all night suggesting things to check BUT if you don't know what you are looking at then their isn't much point in any one of us helping you in that way.

Best thing is to find a local VW sympathetic garage and let them have a butchers at your motor, or at least start with checking all the basics including having the fuel lines and carburettor checked for water contamination which finds its way into the fuel tank via either a perrished fuel filler neck and or rotted fuel breather pipes on each of the breather tanks under each wheel arch.


Regards


Fritz,,,,,,,,,,,

[minke]

I had a similar problem with my 1600 D , I paid two garages lots of dosh to service & sort.

Still the same until I found that the air filter was connected to a snokel that ran up the rear panel to the vents. it was rotted & sucked flat so the engine wasnt getting aspirated. I removed it & when i started the van..Brmmmm jumped in & was doing 65 to 70, easy, whereas I was only getting 45 /50 before.

Funny thing was I couldnt find this air snorkel in any manuals.

So check engine aspiration, take Air filter off & see if there is any improvemnt in performance.

Good luck.

Kev

[Mushr00m]

Could be a million & one things from having the wrong rated sparkplugs to the breather in your fuel cap being blocked. A sticky choke to an electrical fault such as a wire expanding as it gets warm via engine heat & breaking contact(had one of those on an XR3i that took me weeks to trace).

Best get a friend who knows about mechanics to have a look, as a garage would invaribly charge £££s to have a look & they may be looking for quite a while.

Sorry I'm not a lot of help but as fritz says it could be anything.