Club 80-90 Forums

PetenAli wrote:
As well as the coil the other key ignition part is the condenser. Only then can you say you've replaced all the ignitition side.

Sounds like you could do with a copy of the John Muir Bible. Apart from just being very useful its also a good read. Look here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Keep-Volkswagen" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... 1566913101

PS Its a pretty looking buggy - thanks for posting the pics!

Condenser noted, thank you.

"How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot" - None taken! Thanks for the pointer - it does seem to get good write-ups.

The photos in this thread aren't my mate's, but I agree, they all look good. I'll get my mate's permission to post some photos. I'm particularly hoping to post a little video of the engine running - when we give it some beans it's fabulous. But at the moment there's an awful lot of popping from the right hand exhaust when we do that.

weimarbus wrote:As per your previous post where you said it was running well, if the only thing that you have done is to remove the manifolds to install new tin ware I would suspect that the tinware needs trimming back around the manifold seat to allow it to fit and bed down correctly, or is the fan shroud touching the carb and tilting it preventing a seal?

Yes, we did worry about that, since the manifold hole in the tinware is a tight fit, and the lip on the rocker side (as opposed to the spark plug side) is quite obstructive. So last night we eased the tinware up out of the way while fitting the manifolds. We pushed the manifold through the hole in the tinware, and tightened the nuts down completely, then repositioned the tinware. We even eased the lip on the manifold side out a little, using a pair of pliers, to make it easier to get the tinware back in place.

I'm pretty confident that we made a solid job of fitting those gaskets, so if there's an air leak, it's not at that point. If it wasn't for that blasted tinware we could spray it with WD40 while running to look for a leak, just to be sure, but I don't think that will work now.

The carbs have about a half inch gap to the shroud, and the carb-to-manifold gaskets are new. It's a bit awkward removing the left hand carb, since the 'inside' bolt has very tight access - we have to iterate with a ring spanner, then an open ender, then the ring again, then the open ender flipped over, just to turn it one flat! But the more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to swap the carbs over - that will narrow down the problem quite quickly.

What's annoying and puzzling is that we did indeed get it running properly after changing the gasket, but in all the work to refit the dynamo and the tinware the problem came back. It certainly did feel like we'd undone the good work of the new gasket. But I'm wondering now if we're looking at a coincidence. If there's, say, an electrical fault, perhaps disturbing all the plug leads, removing the dizzy cap etc, fixed it and brought it back in sync with the new manifold gaskets.

Continuing thread hijack...

weimarbus wrote:Sorry to hijack post, but would hate to deprive 'Petenali' of buggy pics]weimarbus/media/002_zps6didssbg.jpg.html][IMG]
buggy on silly summer wheels

I didn't look properly first time round weimarbus. The "summer" wheels and tyres threw me as you say. But I can see now some giveaways - the bash plate and the map light being two. A tuned 1.9 DG in that light package must make for a very competitive Class 8 car. Where do you go trialling? Coulsdon is is a bit of a distance from the main trialling areas. Do you just do the MCC events? Or do you do ACTC as well? I have a 1303 Class 4 Beetle still in the garage tho I haven't used it for about four years because of the demands of self employment and two sons at uni at the same time. I'm looking to get back into trialling this autumn tho as the last one has just graduated. I have the makings of a 1641cc and might give Class 6 a go.

Progress. Swapped the carbs over and the problem followed the carb. So we can rule out electrical issues, timing issues, leaky manifolds, valve clearances etc. It's hopefully just a tuning problem. The carb that's now on the left seems to need slightly higher revs to stop it popping, so we're guessing it's an idle mixture problem. But this means that the idle speed is a compromise at the moment - if we lower it to where it should be then the left bank isn't firing properly, so we've left it at about 1400 rpm for now, until such time as we can get it to an expert with a gas analyser and a manometer to balance the two carbs.

So in the meantime, we think it's running well enough to get it to an MOT. Here's some photos:

Very smart looking, I definately approve of the colour

Hi Petenali, I used to do MCC trials, first Lands End was 1977 I think, but always drove a beetle then (green 1600 later with a shorrock supercharger) and competed in all trials( ebworth, exmoor, torbay, exe valley clee etc) till 1985 had a Kids break till I built the buggy 18 years ago, I only do a couple of events a year now ( shortage of brownie points) but always like to do the Exmoor clouds. Yes the buggy performs well but the driver is not so good these days. Keep the beetle and hope to see you one day on the hills.

Now we know it's the carb, I've been reading up about this Solex H40 44EIS. I bet it's a leaky throttle bush in the throttle body. It seems quite a common problem with this carb, and it would give similar symptoms to a leaking manifold gasket, plus it would be a bit variable depending on the position of the throttle. So a squirt of WD40 or a smear of grease should help confirm this I guess.

So is re-bushing it a DIY job? If not, can you suggest where to take/send it to get it done?