Sorry for the long post... Ok, i havn't really driven my VL for about 3 weeks due to high petrol prices and i've been riding my bike pretty much everywhere (poor uni student) on saturday i filled her up and went over to a mates place (30min away) and she was driving like normal, perfectly sweet as (although a little heavy on fuel like usual) we went for a cruise a little later in the day to grab a bite to eat, was runnin along steady at almost 2grand and i noticed it spluttered a couple of times (tacho bounced down and back up a fair old way) but not a huge splutter, more like 400rpm down and back, but noticeable... got to the corner and had to stop, and it idled alright for a second of 2, the started its little stutter, dropping from 800rpm to about 300rpm but intermittently, not all the time, came round the corner, gave her a boot, it hesitated but then reved up fine. Stopped for a few hours, watched the grand final then i drove home, ran perfectly fine on the way home that i could tell. Felt a bit peckish so i went to maccas, got to the drivethrough and had to stop, it started doing the stuttering again, pushed the shifter up in2 neutral and it evened out around to around 800-900rpm idle, put her into drive and moved forward and stopped still in drive and it started stuttering again (still intermittent, so it will idle ok, then die and choke a few times then idle ok then die and choke) pushed back up into neutral and it evened out... drove home and gave it acouple of boots and it seemed to run ok when revving up , but just sounded that slight bit off while crusing at a steady speed (you know how u get used to the sound of ur car and everything after owning it for a long time and u can pick up on even the slightest change?) it just sounded off... So now i've pretty well figured that it only does it under load, pretty much when stopped and in drive, coz it won't do it when its in neutral stopped, it only does it when its warm too i found out yesterday, not when its cold. I thought it was flooding initially, coz the car ran like that when my last AFM died, so i pulled the AFM out, it was reading 382ohms, which i had it set at when i replaced it (wreckers job and only read 16ohms when i got it), so i rolled it up slightly to 386ohms and sprayed contact cleaner through it to see if it cleaned it up, put it back in the car, still did the same thing with its stutter under load, where as my car was flooding in neutral when my AFM went last time... ok, time to go under the bonnet again, started her up and pushed all the sparkplug leads at the plugs (replaced all of them not 3 months ago, same with plugs) and then on the dizzy, didn't seem to do much, so i thought i'd push acouple of electrical plugs to make sure they were all contacted fine, pushed AFM plug, then went to the dizzy, pushed the one on the side of it, nothing, just touched the one on the top (picture to show what i mean, arrow shows direction i gently pushed it) and the car just DIED, i mean just sh*t itself... fuel pump keep running for a second or too then stopped (like it was priming) pulled the plug off (all wires on the plug seems strongly intact to their holder, so its not a loose wire there), contact cleaned it, put some electrical conductor goo on it and pluged it all back in, turned the car to prime again and it primed up then made a POP under the bonnet, i was a bit worried, i still turned her over anyway, fired up alright, ran like a bucket of sh*t and coughed, hacked and died in the matter of a few seconds... i wiggled the plug then primed her up again and fired her over, ran fine, pushed the plug and it spat and died, i wiggled the plug a bit after it died and the fuelpump buzzed and so did wateva buzzes under the bonnet when u goto start it (efi gear?) and then stopped abruptly while i wiggled it... i think its a short in the plug (end attached to the dizzy)... could it be the CAS on its way out?? also does this look right to u?? i'm no mechanic but i just wanted to make sure CAS?? Electrical?? Anything??? I want this fixed so my girl is running again properly... what else could it be?? I'm supposed to b driving to melb this weekend for the supercross, i wanna make it there and back running like a dream like it usually does.... Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

yup change your cas cause mine started doing that too and then it would just stall all the time so if i was u id change it

Quote: Originally Posted by USH time to go under the bonnet again, started her up and pushed all the sparkplug leads at the plugs (replaced all of them not 3 months ago, same with plugs) and then on the dizzy, didn't seem to do much, so i thought i'd push acouple of electrical plugs to make sure they were all contacted fine, pushed AFM plug, then went to the dizzy, pushed the one on the side of it, nothing, just touched the one on the top (picture to show what i mean, arrow shows direction i gently pushed it) and the car just DIED, i mean just sh*t itself... fuel pump keep running for a second or too then stopped (like it was priming) yeah i had a really similar problem. when i touched the wire leading to the dizzy, the car would run like crap and sometimes stall. i checked all my wires and stuff, i just put new tape over a few joins. didn't really seem to do much. I did everything you have done the problem has gone a way since i took my car on the highway for 200km's or so and i don't really know what it is? also now runs really strong and haven't had a problem since. its really wierd. so you aren't alone and i want to know what the really problem is so i don't have to worry about it. So if anyone could help out, it would be great. Thanks, Dallas

***UPDATE*** ok, i can stall the car on demand by pushing the plug pictured in the direction of the arrow, just needs a very slight tap and the car will just totally die... popped the bonnet on my old mans 86 VL wagon, fired her up and played with the same plug on it, can practically swing off the thing as it does absolutely NOTHING to it, not even a motor glitch at all... whats the deal with that? what does it plug into? The plug doesn't seem to b loose on the top wire wise, or on the bottom when its all unplugged... so whats happening? Can u help me out guys?? Ush

your cas is probably on its way out mate... that is the connection to the crank angle sensor... replace the cas and itll be sweet

i had it replaced not even 2 years ago... whats the go with that?? cost me like $350 to get done then!!! Shouldnt it last longer that 2 years?? ush

$350 bucks.. some one got raped up the bum... CAS can last 17 years.. or 3 days... the wonders of old school electircs.. There is a good one and a bad one to get.. i forget now i think its like if it has gook wrighting on it its bad..

guess i did, but that included getting it towed from where it shat itself, into the workshop and fixed that night just to get it running again... which wasn't too bad coz i needed the car... looks like i'll b heading off to the mechanic again to get this CAS fixed... where is the best place to buy w CAS on its own, so i can take it in to the mechanic to have it put in?? ush

before you replace the CAS just try replacing the plug - worked for me and cost less than $20.

pm darkstar on these forums... he sells brand new cas kits for 140 $ delivered

iv`e had exactly the same prob in my n/a wagon, changed dizzy, rotor , leads, cas, plugs, pretty much everythn electrical. After a lot of towin and pushin the old girl around, sat down one night went thro everythin and found out fuel pumps were stuffed, 1 wasnt working and the other was hardly pushing out any pressure at all causing the engine to stall and hav rough idle and not start at times. Check your pumps!!!

already changed my high presure one. it seemed to fix it, like the car wouldn't die after i punched it. but after a few months it developed a miss down low in the revs. i can also make my car stall or run crap on command by tuching the same wires- the ones leading to the dizzy. so yeah i will try my cas next. Thanks. Dallas

i'll give the plug a go, then if thats no good, i'll go for the CAS from darkstar, then if THATS no good, i'll have to start looking at other things... Thanks guys ush

Quote: Originally Posted by [SC]Matty $350 bucks.. some one got raped up the bum... CAS can last 17 years.. or 3 days... the wonders of old school electircs.. There is a good one and a bad one to get.. i forget now i think its like if it has gook wrighting on it its bad.. they used to cost alot more then Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

my vl was doing exaqctly the same thing, replaced the CAS plug and works fine now the thing with your CAS is it either works or it doesnt work so youll know when it doesnt work cause your car just wont go lol a poor connection with the plug can cause anything from a minor niggle every now n then to a continues mis fire my car was misfiring when it got to a certain rpm at each gear was really pissing me off to the point i was crying lol so yeh plug costs me 40 n 20 for labour, unless your good with a soldering iron i suggest u get it done by a auto electric dude, not worth the hassle over 20 bucks

same prob with me, cept it takes a lot of wiggleing 2 get the car 2 stall, ill be gettin that plug replaced 2morro morning and ill be back with the results, seems like we're on the right track though, ide rather just do the plug, i was also quoted 350 all up to replace the cas, apparently theres a lot of labour in it cos it takes a while to do * shrugs *

Quote: Originally Posted by USH i'll give the plug a go, then if thats no good, i'll go for the CAS from darkstar, then if THATS no good, i'll have to start looking at other things... Thanks guys ush I'm sure you are all on the right track, it should not cost you that much to replace , I can not remember where but I'm sure it was from this site new cas sets from $80.00 and if you are handy it can be done yourself if you felt confident to tackle it, the top plug on your dissy is in control of your cas, and looking at the plug itself being open and not sealed you will allow moisture to contaminate the plug points, or worse allow moisture into the cas area itself via the plug ....... moisture is number 1 reason for cas breakdowns, [ usually as when washing motor with the hose ] but even on rainy days, it can get steamy under the bonnet allowing moisture travel. cheers

Hey, talk about post from the dead!! hahaha, thats cool tho... I ended up replacing the CAS plug with a new one, new pins and all, and rewired it for about half a meter along the loom.... gee that was fun... haha nah it wasn't too bad, it did stop the car from stalling when u wiggled it tho, so that was good... it slowed that intermittent stutter it had, like it only happened every now and again after that, but never totally eliminated it... I probably shoulda done the CAS as well, but i got out of it for like $40 all up. Sold the car not long after that, the new owner hasn't had a problem at all, been to horsham (big trip from here) and back a few times, melb and back all the time (450km round trip) his g/f has had it in melb driving it round for uni and not a single problem with it at all... so i'm glad that its been reliable even just after a change of the CAS plug... I recon its worth it just to get done for the hell of it (the plug), by urself or an auto elec, and put some new wires for the loom too (a decent length), coz after 20 odd years under the bonnet, heat, oil, dirt, and who knows what else, they r bound to need a freshen... ush

i did mine for $80 buks, did it myself mate, easy to do and also replaced the dizzy bearing because it wasnt spinning freely, felt like it had crushed bearings in it so thats why probably the cas was struggling to read the cas disc....3.50 for the bearing and was all sweet

problem looks like its been solved post removed