No spark at the plugs........ideas welcome

Just want to pick the brains of anyone, everyone welcome to put there tuppence's worth in.

The car is a 1983 GTi.


Last week I was taking a run up the A41 towards Whitchurch and decided to stop for half an hour, when I came to start her she wouldn't go and after numerous attempt winding her over she fired and ran perfectly. After another 20 mins I stopped for half an hour and the same starting problem occurred, then drove again for 20 mins then stopped and came to start her after an  hour and same problem again, worried at the battery draining I got a friend to put his jump leads on and she started straight away. The next morning I thoughtI might have a problem, but she started within 3 seconds, I ran her to work, turned her off and went to start her and she wouldn't start. Before all this started she would start instantly, I can hear the pump priming before starting, the tank and pump etc are all new, I have just bought an ignition control unit, coil and fitted them but I am getting no spark at all, I am waiting delivery of a brand new dizzie, but wondered if anyone with years of golf wisdom knows of any other silly things it might be.

ht leads maybe
but i havent got years of golfy wisdom behind me :dontknow:

Could be many things, i would start though by checking the ignition switch out, these can play up, no need to strip it all to bits next time the car plays up unplug the switch and plug a spare on and try that

i had a bad connection on the dizzy cap which did the same on my old one, kept sutting out after a few miles contact cleaner on everything sorted it out.

I still learning as I go along but do these have Hall Senders in the dizzy?

Well I've done the tests that are in the Haynes manual and it seems to point to Hall Sender unit, luckily I found a brand new complete dizzy on ebay last week for 46 quid and am just waiting for it to arrive and touch wood it'll be back on the road.

I'll let you know if it works.


Thanks for your ideas, any other ideas are welcome as I'm sure someone else will get this problem and search the forum in the near future.(and also I might be wrong about the Hall Sender, and wont know till the dizzie turns up )

always take the laeds off one by one and ark it on the body to see if theres a spark, if one is not working you will either need to change the lead, or plug then check the contacts on the cap and arm, then check the coil contact spark.

cheapest checking alternative.

I've had a similar problem. Turned out to be the ignition module. See you have replaced that though…

Evening all, well fitting a new dizzie and it hasnt worked, still no spark , could a fuel pump relay affect the operation of the coil?? or am I now desperately clutching at straws?

When I turn the ignition on I get the initial two sec burst from the pump, but when I'm winding over as well as no spark produced, I cant feel the pump whirring, I know the pump relay and coil are connected electrically  but wondering if the power at the LT side of the coil could be drawn away by a dodgy pump relay…..the relay is only 3/4months old from GSF.

More ideas still welcome

As a temporary mesure to rule out pump relay probs you can connect the two power feeds of the slot the relay fits into to make the pump work continuosly. Check for a spark from the coil ht lead (hold near block with insulated tool) to rule out dizzy problems. Check the connection to the ignition module. Check the coil feed to the battery earth. Try another ignition module? I went through all this last week as I posted above… Just because something is new doesn't rule it out as being the faulty item…

HTH

i had a smimlar problem in when i went round a sharp right hand corner the car would cut out for a short time.

I traced the fault to a wire by the battery that leeds to the coil  which wasn't secured properly and thus streching the wire, which looks good on the outside and breaking on the inside.

woth a try

i've had this problem in an underground car park in brussels and 2 different AA type companys could not fix it, but i did eventually.i had removed the ht lead from the coil when leaving the car for a few days and on return, the car would not start. long story short, a wire had come disconnected from a sensor, in my case a water sensor, and was lying on the block. this was causing the earth ( i.e. the block) to short to live ( the sensor), making enought short to kill the spark. the car eventually started in brussels after being towed, but had to be reved and driven hard to keep it going. the vibration kept the wire from making a good contact with the block.when i switched the engine off it was dead, due to the short.

check all the sensor wires are still attached where they belong, after i found the sensor wire and reattached it, it started and ran perfectly again.
something sooooo simple causing soooo many problems   .

Well I put her into an auto electricians, and got them to test everything, as I culd get power to all the variou components but still no spark, and they came back and told me the new dizzie was wrong one and didnt work(even though it was a recon and the correct vw part number) and that the ignition control unit that I bought from GSF was incorrect (checked the GSF site and the same ignition control unit is listed for mk1 and mk2 gti's, which, am I right they should be different?) so I got a second hand dizzie off a campaign that works and they tested the old original ignition control unit and say it works and have put that back on. Collected it and it started first turn of the key, so went for a run, got home and went to start her and same again wouldn't start :? and the same thing has happened everytime she's got hot. I'm not going back to the auto electricians as they really didn't seem to understand old school engines, and gave me a blank look when I mentioned Hall Sender. What I'm waiting for now is an ignition control unit, what I shall do is run the car with the old unit till the problem starts and then change the unt for a new/good secondhand one and see if it starts….I'll let you know

Right, I've now identified the problem, she starts fine when cold, and when hot she still starts first time, if you restart her within  a minute or two of stopping.  The trouble starts when she's hot and been left for for 10-15 minutes then she wont start, anyway the sparks now good (changed everything to do with the ignition system prior), when I tested the injectors originally, the engine was warm not hot and injected as per normal. Today I had a brain wave, get her hot then wait till she wont restart then test the fuel system again, so removed an injectorand wound her over-no fuel, then removed the air intake hose off the metering head and manually lifted the plate to simulate acceleration and wound her over-no fuel,  cracked the banjo nut for the fuel inlet to the metering head- loads of pressure and petrol everywhere when winding over as well as the initial burst when turning on he ignition .  So for some reason the metering head goes wrong when hot, going to do a little strip down tonight, see if anything obvious is wrong, and get a good second hand one tomorrow.