car dies for no apparent reason

[Gary Moore <magritte@pobox.com>]

Over the last few months, I've had an incident or two each week of my '80
Scirocco dying all of the sudden.  Usually it happened when the engine was
idling, but it has happened while moving along under power.  The only
warning sign I've seen is flashing of the red warning light under the
water temp gauge, like happens when the car is first started up.  After a
couple seconds of the light flashing, the engine just dies like I'd turned
the ignition off.  Always, though, the car started up again easily...

Until tonight.  I was stopped at an intersection.  I had the headlights on
and the ventilation fan on full.  I noticed the instrument lighting seemed
unusually dim, and I verified that the dimmer was turned up all the way.
When the traffic light turned green, I hit the gas and the engine faltered
badly.  I blipped the throttle a few times with the clutch partially
engaged, and managed to get enough momentum to coast out of the way of
traffic before the engine died completely.

After I stopped, I tried to start the car, but the engine wouldn't even
turn over a little bit.  The lights dimmed when I turned the key, but
nothing else happened.  I turned everything off, went and used a pay phone
for a few minutes, came back, and tried starting the car.  It started up
right away and seemed fine.  I turned on the headlights--which seemed
dim--and the engine stumbled to a stop again.  Once again, the engine
wouldn't turn over at all.

I caught a bus home, and about 90 minutes later, got a ride back down to
the Scirocco.  It started right up when I turned the key.  I let it idle
for about three minutes, revving the engine now and then--it seemed
perfectly normal.  I turned on the headlights, which were again dimmer
looking on the car parked in front of me than I expected.  Within ten or
fifteen second, the engine died again and refused to turn over when I
turned the key.

If you've read this far--have any suggestions?  I'm thinking maybe it's
the ignition switch, but it doesn't seem like a failing ignition switch
would explain all of the behavior the car is displaying.



 +                                         +
   Gary Moore, Technical Editor
   gary.moore@pobox.com, magritte@serv.net
   http://www.drizzle.com/~magritte/
 +                                         +


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