she's cutting out...

Hey everyone, apologies for not posting for a while, hope you're all well

I was wondering if anyone can offer any advice: over the last month, i've been having some really odd problems with the car and it's stumping me and a number of garages…

She seems to drive fine from cold, but once it gets up to temperature (i.e. once I get into the traffic in town) All of a sudden she wont idle properly at 800-900, it's more like 200ish and if I let off the gas she just sputters and conks out. So, I have to keep blipping the throttle. Even changing gears is tricky…Also again once it's up to temp, sometimes it will just seem a bit gutless and hesitant out on the road, and if I pull over the idle does the same thing. However, once I start her up again she's ususally ok for a while…The garage found an air-leak in the carb mount, but that's been sorted and it's still happening…

I found a mini specialist here in barrow, the only place who knew how to set up carbs, so apparently it's set up correctly now (mixture etc)

Any ideas?

Happy Christmas!

Dylan

'84 1.6 Golf GL, Pierburg 2e2 carb

hello mate,

ive had exactly the same problem with mine for about 2 months.

I have found mine to be moisture related but im not sure what it is still. From reading all the posts the things i think it could and i have be are as follows:

ignition:

Dizzy cap - check for black tracking on the contacts
Rotor arm - check for carbon deposits on contact
Spark plugs - replace if worn
HT leads - check in dark for blue sparks to engine bay when damp.

Ignition coil
Hall sender unit/ ignition amplifier

Fuel related:

Rust and crap in fuel tank - remove sender unit under rear seat and check with torch, if lots of flakes in tank unplug fuel filter-blow through blue fuel pipe to clear and replace fuel filter with new one.

Dodgy fuel seperator reservoir between the fuel pump and the carb - try bypassing it by bunging up the fuel return pipe and plug fuel pipe str8 into the carb.

Carb jets blocked - prob a job for the garage unfortunately.

Carb icing - apparently they can freeze up usually with webers though.

Air related:

Check vacuum hoses for cracks - as it advances the timing

Think the pierburg carbs have waxstats which are shit and always fuck up which mess idling up etc.

Let me know how u get on coz im still chasing my problem

i'm having the same problems with mine, 1.8 with weber dmtl.

when up to temp strugles on tick over, it will cut out, when i restart it runs fine???

i'm gunna try re jetting mine, checked every thing you mentioned. fuel pump does go strait to carb so i have no return (not my doing)

really spoiling the best car i'm ever likly to own/ drive. new carb so i assume all gaskets are fine, i replaced the base gasket

i just think its about due a 16 valve injected conversion.

fuel filters are clean and replaced monthly. i just cant think of any thing

yea i know what you mean its really frustrating. Antoher thing to check which i have realised today is the cam belt. I just had some rattling noise from my water pump area and thought it was a bearing turns out it was my cam belt worn and loosened up flapping on ther housing. Had it replaced today and it seems to have fixed my cutting out problem, apparently coz it was loose i could have been intermittently advancing/retarding the timing…..I will see this week and post results!

Have you replaced the hall sender jobbie?

well it wasnt the cam belt making my car cut out, is still the same.... i will get to the bottom of it!!!!!

it was dead at work today so i got out the gas anneliser an mine is running at 400+ hydro carbons (bad gas produced by unburnt fuel/ genraly runing rich) which is as i thought,

every thing else is more or less as it should be at idle

then under load 2500-3000 revs every thing levals out so i'm gunna change my jets and go from their, if you could get your emitions checked to see if their similar to mine? it could be just wrongly jetted carbs?

i'll let you know if i find any thing more

and yes we will find out whats going wrong!   

cheers pete

Hello nice to know I'm not alone mine starts fine with a weber carb but on my drive to work I can feel it spluttering it then will not idle but will rev if I let it cut out and restart it it will run perfectly. The weber is brandnew so not that I did think of changing coil as thats easy and cheap any thoughts.

Hey chaps,

I've been doing a bit of research and testing, and I've found a couple of things out. These are common issue with idling:

#01. the Waxstat on the 2e2 is grotty, apparently failure on these is fairly common. The test seems to be, take it off, stick it in a pan and boil it, The pin in the centre should poke out by about 10mm. Then when it's cool, you can use your calibrated screwdriver to apply 30N to it and see if it retracts. I did this and it seems ok.

#02. The flow of coolant around the water jacket can be impeded by the o-ring in the back of the inlet manifold, which can apparently just rot and cause bad flow. The test for this is, when the engine is up to temp (vertical needle), can you hold your hand on the autochoke assembly for greater than a second? If so, you probably have this problem. On mine, it's red hot. Apparently it is an utter pain to replace as you have to have the maifold off.

#03. Icing. Apparently when it's very moist in the atmosphere (i.e. half the year up in cumbria!) icing is very common below 15 degrees. There are two main ways the carb prevents this.

Firstly, the vac pipe from the back of the 2e2 goes to a thermostat on the air-filter-box, and a vac pipe goes from there to the warm air flap in the intake pipe. Over summer especially, the flaps have a tendency to seize up, and so no warm air can get into the carb on startup. Spray WD down there and have a wiggle. Apparently, sucking on the vac pie can make the flap go up and down but I can't make this happen on mine. This is one thing I'm considering as the problem…

Secondly, right at the bottom of the front of the carb is a little heater unit called the "part throttle channel heater". On mine, the 12V power wire that comes out the bottom of it was completely gone, and so this unit isn't doing anything.

#04. Pull down unit. This needs to be checked too but so far I havent been able to do it. I need to wait now until I get a few bits fitted.

Most of this info was collated from threads on the clubgti website, especially this brilliant FAQ:

http://www.clubgti.com/forum/showthread.php?t=124945

Maybe this will help somebody else out too…Staring to feel like I'm getting somewhere

try the inlet rubber seal only 2pound odd and not to hard to fit and very commun problem on the mk 1 carbs

mate mine has this gay problem to and im a blood grease monkey and im struggling!!  but when i find it out im gonna tell the world!!

I would be really interested to see if any of these things rectify the problems.
I have had a few problems with mine but (touch wood) its running spot on at the min. I know now from my little experience but i would check and double check all the vacuum hoses, and the inlet manifold rubber.

Also check if your dizzy has a rev limiter rota arm on it as the spring inside can seize.

Gaz