Still fartin witht he cabby

[Calimus]

Did a little work on the cabby this week and basicly, I'm not sure if it's better or worse.

I swapped the top's of the air boxes back out. I knew the one I had in currently has a sticky restrictor plate. I also thought maybe, the frequency valve currently in the car was the better of th two. So aftre some swaping, I fired everything back up and what I have is as followes.

Harder to cold start then before the swap.

Slightly harder warm start, but more consistant that before the swap.

Idle is more erratic then before the swap.

So now I'm pretty much convinved that I have a crappy fuel dizzy currently in the car, however, I went to just swithc the dizzy's and sure enough, one of the damn t-22 screws that hold it on stripped right out. Why oh why did VW curse me with all these damn torex and tripple-square bolts/screws.

So I think this weekend I'm going to see about sourcing another setup from the local VW bone yard and see where that gets me as well as maybe another distributor since I've always suspected the current one of being wonky. More fun in the coming days.

[vw_nick]

have you ever tried to set the CO ? (fuel mixture)

We've had a couple of CIS cars in the shop and the other guy got them to start better by correcting the mixture.. (And fixing the non-functional cold-start injectors, intake leaks, boost valve seals, etc)

[1lowcab]

i have a fuel dizzy out of the 82 parts car if ya want it. it's the old thick wall kind. i don't know if you can use any parts off it or not, but it's yours if you need it.

[CalAltaDubber]

Admit it William,

You just love to hate that car.

[Calimus]

Of course I love to hate the car, problem is, I hate to hate the car. Hrm, did that even make any sence?

Anyway, lets see if I can reply to everyone here.

Nick - Setting the fuel mix is what I've been trying to do, however, it seems to be an effort in futility. The fuel dizzy is a key part of that but it's not like I can just hool a volt-meter up and check the progress. The only way I can see whats going on is to hook a duty cycle meter into the test ports and go off that. Problem is, that reading won't tell me what's screwed up, so it's a replace & try again kinda thing till it all work or I shoot myself, whichever comes first. Real PITA, just for the record, I F'ING HATE CIS.

1Low - Thanks for the offer it's much appreciated. I have a local VW bone yard that I'm going to check first. If I can't find what I need, I very well might be in touch with ya.

[1lowcab]

no problem.
if i could get my butt in gear with this turbo install i'd let you have the dizzy off my 89 as i won't need it anymore and i know it's good.... but alas, i'm too lazy.

[tolusina]

William,

First TRF post, HI!!

Of course I love to hate the car, problem is, I hate to hate the car. Hrm, did that even make any sence?...

That makes perfect sense! Just as much as the Blues song I've been hearing on XM, "If Love is Blind, I hope I never See You Again". I can NOT figure quite what that title really means.

.......Setting the fuel mix is what I've been trying to do, however, it seems to be an effort in futility. The fuel dizzy is a key part of that but it's not like I can just hool a volt-meter up and check the progress. The only way I can see whats going on is to hook a duty cycle meter into the test ports and go off that. Problem is, that reading won't tell me what's screwed up, so it's a replace & try again kinda thing till it all work or I shoot myself, whichever comes first. Real PITA, just for the record, I F'ING HATE CIS.....

Have you seen http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/~kaw5/CISidle.htm ?? You can certainly monitor O2 sensor voltage with a DVOM, should fluctuate around 0.5 VDC ± 0.4 VDC in closed loop.
Substitute, alternately ground, then 1.5 V from a dry cell battery for the O2 sensor signal to verify the ECU and freq valve are doing like they should. The ground signal tells the ECU mixture is lean, it should correct with a rich correction. The 1.5 VDC signal from the dry cell tells the ECU way rich, lean it out NOW, the car may well stall from going so lean.

Cruise J.C. Whitney for a suitable fuel pressure gauge that you can read system and control pressures with.

The price of a dwell meter and a fuel pressure gauge set will hopefully be less than the parts swapping you'll be doing otherwise.

Ron

[Calimus]

Ron,

I have a dwell meter (made that investment already) and I guess a fuel pressure guage wouldn't hurt.

I think I had looked at that link you gave me a long time ago but as I tend to do, I had forgotten some of the info. So thanks for the link, I might be able to get it straight with that.

I planned on toying with it over much of the weekend, so I'll see if I can find a fuel pressure guage at one of my local auto parts places.

[Briano1234]

Ron,

I have a dwell meter (made that investment already) and I guess a fuel pressure guage wouldn't hurt.

I think I had looked at that link you gave me a long time ago but as I tend to do, I had forgotten some of the info. So thanks for the link, I might be able to get it straight with that.

I planned on toying with it over much of the weekend, so I'll see if I can find a fuel pressure guage at one of my local auto parts places.

Harbor Freight had one that I saw.......when I was in there about 2 weeks ago.

[Calimus]

Hrm, there is a harbor freight close to work, but it's on one of the busiest roads around and closed by the time I get outta work.

Damn.

Thanks for the tip Brian, I'm gonna hope that Auto-zone, Advanced, Auto parts, Napa or Jim-Bob's Car parts shack might have one

[dubchickshubby]

Oh great. One more variable to contenet with...

Sorry to hijack in here, but I've been tearing my hair out (and I ain't got much!) with the DubChick's slush-o-matic. I was convinced that it had to do with a fuel pump. Replaced that and no dice. Smelled gas while I was checking out the external one and found that the glued on nipple on the filter alongside the fuel tank (yep, there's one there too) was delaminating off and leaking. Don't worry, the new one has this molded in place so for once VW recognized the fault. After relacing that mess, she ran realatively good. For about 5 minutes.

Then I got smart and hooked up a fuel pressure tester. When flipping the cutout switch the car ran great! Ok too much fuel pressre and it's running rich. Never saw this because the plugs (new ones again) are fine. Nice toaty tan color.

I replaced the CIS unit from my 'rocco and it idled better. Irt was at this time I found that the ile was was all whacked. The PO had the stop plate at about a 20 degree angle! I backed this off to just b-a-r-e-l-y open and then worked the PROPER mixture screw to get an idle. Wow was it off! Started fine and ran strong. No more unexpected downshifts while cruising. 3 days later boom! Back on it's face while I'm on the highway. So I tried a Porsche Technique: I kicked the fuseblock and sure enough, the Cabby sprang to life again! Aha! How many of us have pulled relays only to find something that resembles a leaky flashlight battery? Swapped the Load reduction relay with no effect. Fuel pump relay is fine. Maybe it's the connections on the back.

So now I'm faced with yanking the fuse block from Old Skool (already swapped froma Jetta) and plugging it into Bebe just to see if it wakes her up...

And now I read all this. What if this is the cause? What if it's the distributor? Maybe the Aux air module...haven't checked that one yet either.

Now they are calling for a foot of snow. No garage. Gaaaahhhhh!

Makes no sense, but it has to be the F*kin auto tranny. I HATE Automatics!