Im trying to get my little brothers project going now as ive done the head gasket and the service on it, the problem is its a bugger to start! I have fitted new plugs (well the ones i had in my mk1 that were pretty new and worked fine) as wel as new dizzy cap, and arm, its also had a oil and filters change. there is new fuel in the system now - the car has been stood for 2 years with bugger all fuel in it but there was fuel in the lines and tank. if you take take the plugs out it spins over fine, with the plugs in and not connected it fine but slower, but when its all connected it spins ok for a second, then slows, and becomes very jerky, coughs every once in a while and pops out the exhaust, and some times it stops spinning over. - now i suspect its the timing but am i likely to be too advanced? or retarded? (it did run last week for all of 5 seconds) I need to get this running if poss by thurs eve as its not stored at our house yet and i need to get it back here before i can finish off the fettling. cheers Karl.
I think you're right about timing. I'd suggest you double (and triple) check the cam timing, and then start playing with the ignition timing, just by moving the dizzy a few degrees at a time - mark the start position before you start fiddling with it. Are you happy that the manifolds are on tight as well?
check the dizzy, very easy to knock this out of time with head off. Take the cap off and turn the engine over to TDC, the rotor arm should line up with a notch in the dizzy housing
im sure on the cam timing, as i made sure 1 was at tdc, the mark lined up, and the same time. im pretty happy on the manifolds, so im sure it must be the timing. Ill have a play tomorrow eve, cheers guys
I learnt about the dizzy the hard way when fitting a GTI zaust on my 1.6, I had to take the head off as 1 of the studs sheared off! When I got it back together it wouldnt start did a bit of reading and found I had spun the dizzy round a few teeth.
Right a bit fo progress.... I had made a boo-boo and got the fiting order wrong so 2 cylinders were swopped over. I have now put this right, and the car cranks over fine...BUT it still refuses to start! I have noticed that the inlne fuel filter doesnt seem to fill up we have already put 4l of fuel in the car, I assume it should fill up and not just have a small bit in the bottom of it. (maybe a air lock?) anything else to check?
pull the feed line off the carb, get someone to crank it while you hold it over a rag or whatever, make sure fuel is coming thru!
i pulled the pipe off before the pump where the fuel filter was, and when i sucked on the pipe fuel did come through, BUT when cranked the fuel filter doesnt seem to fill with fuel, so do they have a lift pump? or do the just work using the mechanical pump? (do this sieze if not used?) Cheers Karl.
just have the mechanical pump, as i say pull the feed off the front of the carb and crank it over. if fuel comes thru then most likely the pump is ok
Update! I have taken the pipe off at the carb and its pumping fuel well, so im now stumped. the plug appear to be wet, but I will double check them again after I try to start it again after dinner. is there anything else worth checking? - on a side not I have noticed that the dizzy cap seems to move alot as the engines cranked over, this cant be right can it?
hmm no it shopuldnt be doing that, maybe its the wrong one for the car? there are 2 dizzys for the 1.6 iirc, bosch and duciellier or something...
I got the dizzy cap from halfords, and the guy said theres 2 which do I have...we narrowed it down by the colour as the duicelelr ones are black and thats what the one that was on there was Im going to try the cap off the mk1 and see if that makes any differance, the anoying this is I sold a brand spankingnew dizzy for a 1.6 carb not very long ago!
Is there any significant play in the shaft that the rotor arm sits on? Maybe it's t***ting the contacts as it spins?
there doesnt appear to be any play in the shaft, im going to go and take the cap off and have a look see.
IT RUNS!!! I feel a bit of a tit though, after much head scratching I looked at the timing (after 20mins to remove the stuck fast cover on the transfer housing!!) and the marks were no where to be seen with the strobe, so I cranked it over by hand untill the marks were visiable and then popped the dizzy cap off, and guess what. miles out it would appear that I had managed to move the intermidiate shaft while refitting the cam belt etc I now just need to tweak the timing (Which mark do I use as theres 3 on the fly wheel! ive used the dot one for now and set the timing by hand) Also the dizzy cap wobbling had been cured, its a poo cap and I had managed to fit it 180deg out of line so it wasnt sat 100% right, flopped it round the correct way and all is good again. Cheers for all your help and advice guys
Cheers for that. I had a feeling it would be the same as my mk1, but theres some extra marks etc so I wasnt 100% sure which to use,
