Yesterday drove 180 mile round trip in the 'B; interstate cruising
speeds of 75-85. This is a car that sees a lot of miles -- turned
1/3 of a million miles this month -- so a trip like this is nothing
out of the ordinary. It's been about 80k miles since the last engine
rebuild.
Near the end of the trip, it developed a little bit of a surge at
cruise -- holding steady on the throttle, it would gain and lose
power. Putting the throttle down, it would smooth out. Letting off
the throttle, I would get a little bit of crackling through the
exhaust that isn't usually there.
Sorry for the poor description. Anyway, it wouldn't idle, and was
generally uncooperative. Once it gets going, and the throttle is
open, it runs fine.
So I replaced the head gasket (2 hours from opening the drain on the
radiator to firing it up to test my work. not bad...), but that
didn't do it -- the old head gasket looked fine, and the new one
fixed nothing.
So I'm wondering what might be going on here -- any ideas, or
suggested methods of investigation?
Thanks, all
Matt
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