[T3] Intermittently running on two cylinders

Daniel Nohejl danielnohejl at gmail.com
Mon Dec 3 04:00:46 PST 2012


The problem we're having is actually the ends of the wires fraying and weakening where they join the connectors. 

As far as I know, this is our car's first winter outside…..it came from Texas, spent a few years in a garage in Minnesota, and now lives in Brooklyn, NY. The cold has hastened the aging of the harness….the difference between the harness now and 3 months ago is drastic. It's very stiff, several connectors have snapped off, the boots are cracking, etc. 

In the end, we've decided to get a new harness made. While it isn't cheap, we figured it's a good investment since we plan on keeping the car until it disintegrates. A new harness will allow us to eliminate faulty connectors, hidden shorts, broken wires, etc. from our troubleshooting and diagnosis for good. 

Or so we hope. 

Plus, the builder has recommended augmenting the harness so that the injector grounds will mount on the case like later models.

All in all a more expensive solution than Belleville washers, but it should be worth it!


On Dec 1, 2012, at 4:49 PM, Jim Adney wrote:

> On 1 Dec 2012 at 14:54, Daniel Nohejl wrote:
> 
>> My wife and I are currently battling this very issue on our '69 SB
>> with stock FI. We're not running Pertronix though. 
> 
> On '68-9 FI only, the injector grounds connect to a screw into the 
> head. The connection between the head and the screw tends to become 
> intermittent after the head has heat cycled a few times, so injector 
> grounding problems are common on 68-9 cars.
> 
> The solution I've come up with is to put a special Belleville 
> (dished) washer under the head of the ground screw. This allows for 
> the thermal expansion/contraction that happens each time the engine 
> is run. There are other solutions, but none quite so easy or so 
> inconspicuous.
> 
> On later cars the injector grounds come to the center of the case. 
> The case doesn't get nearly as hot as the heads, so this problem does 
> no occur in the later years.
> 
> -- 
> *******************************
> Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
> Madison, Wisconsin, USA
> *******************************
> 
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