What now??

Well I went back up to Denver bright and early this morning to try and get my Van started. After a quick detour over to JDM Imports over in Commerce City, Rick hooked me up with a known good distributor and Halls sensor that he had laying around. Then I cruised back over to Littleton and started with the install. I remembered that the previous owner mentioned that the motor had overheated in Oregon once and this resulted in a rebuild. I decided to cut into the harness that contains the wiring for the Halls sensor and check it out. I found 3 breaks in the insulation for the ground wire and in one of the breaks there were several strands of wire broken. A trip back over to Commerce City and my new best friend (Rick) re-wired the harness for me while he took a break from doing a slave cylinder on one Westy and a head gasket on another. Then it was back to Littleton to finish things up. I got it all back together and went to start it. No start. No crank at all.

Grrrrrrrrrr. The battery was a bit low at 11.8 volts but I had tried to start that motor quite a bit on Saturday night. I tried jumping it off another vehicle and still no crank. I crawled under and checked the starter and it had 8.9 volts. A little low I thought but my manual wants a minimum of 8. I removed the starter and reinstalled it and no change. Then I unbolted it from the bellhousing and left it wired and used a jumper cable to ground it to the block. No crank still. Then I decided to jump the terminals on the starter with a hunk of coat hanger. No start still. I'm none too happy. I just bought this starter about a month ago. So I pulled it off and apologized to my wife again (she'd been patiently waiting all day for my dumb ass to get things done). I guess I'll be taking it back tomorrow and have them order another. Then we'll head back to Denver and do it all over again.

I'm a bit disgruntled with the Van right now. We'll see where this leads. I did some thinking the last few days.........................