Club 80-90 Forums

Can anyone help me identify these loose connectors?

This is my first post so please let me introduce myself. I have just purchased a 1983 1.9 petrol WBX Autosleeper VT20 poptop. It has some cosmetic paint issues but I think she’s basically solid and I can’t find any filler in the arches etc. I bought it on eBay and went down to Plymouth to collect her. The journey back in the cold became a nightmare before we reached Exeter with a nasty intermittent loss of power with miss/backfiring. Two visits from the AA failed to identify the problem and we arrived home on the truck in the snow at 2.00am.

So began my T25 adventures. I have to admit my moral has slipped a bit but I enjoy tinkering and the info on this forum has pointed me in the right direction. I’m going to start off with a careful check over of the fuel and ignition system including those vacuum hoses. I hope to get stuck in this weekend - weather permitting.

While looking around the engine compartment I have found two connectors that don’t seem to be hooked up.

The first is a connector with three male pins. It is on a grey wire that seems to disappear under the carb to the flange with the gearbox. Where should it go?



There is another on the cooling hoses to the left hand side of the engine. It looks like some sort of connector but doesn’t seem to have any contacts inside it. What is it?



Could either of these be contributing to my misfire?
Any help much appreciated

The three pin socket is redundant and won't affect anything. The other is a bleed screw for cooling system. Either way they won't be causing your problems.

Try replacing your fuel filter (should be underneath near the front) as a starting point. Any clogging limits fuel to carb and will cause problems you've described. Its one cause anyway.

do a mini service,new spark plugs,air filter and as covkid said fuel filter.also make sure you have fully charged battery aswell.i had the exact same symptons as you, done this little service and all was good,cheers dave

Good suggestions there from Dave. You might also check that all vacuum hoses are a good tight fit rather than slip-om/slip-off as air leaks won't help much. Look for signs of ill fitting or perished hoses (not water ones) that could cause further air leaks including brake servo pipe down on the left and side of engine bay. Try putting your hand over the tailpipe when engine is running (briefly) and see if engine goes quieter. If it doesn't, exhaust may be leaking somewhere - v-dubs hate that. Lots neglect air filter. I had a stalling prob for ages before I figured out filter was clogged solid and engine was sucking through a straw. Engines need predictable amounts of both air and fuel.

General service and a good check round could well cure the problems. Some owners neglect engine bay and you end up with an assortment of very minor things that add up to one big one.

If its still running badly, post back and we'll come up with some other things for you to check.

Welcome aboard

I pretty much echo what Dave recommends, plus, when you do your vacuum hoses, check my thread regarding them, I list the supplier of the correct type. It's quite easy to do them all, with one exception, the one that goes behind the rear nearside light, that was quite tricky.

Oh, just out of interest, which petrol did you put in? Mine has to take 98 unleaded, as 95 for some reason causes misfiring issue.

Welcome

My van used to have similar faults to those which you describe. As the other lads have said, do all the routine stuff and I'd also replace the distributor cap & rotor arm and also fit good quality plug leads too. Look inside the cap, if the terminals are black and grotty looking, then the rotor arm will be just as bad probaly, so thats telling you its time to replace them.

As for the fuel issues, then look at this link taken from the Wiki, which is a mine of information: https://club8090.co.uk/wiki/Fu ... rmittently and do check the little gauze filter that's mentioned. It's often overlooked and will starve the engine of fuel if it's badly choked, as mine was. Once I'd cleaned this and done all the other stuff as has been mentioned, it runs fine now.

Good luck

Thank you for all your replies. Now I reckon I can sort this out and get the old girl running right. Incidentally - What was the three pin connector designed for?

From memory it was a thing installed by VW for diagnosis/setting up but it never really proved much use - rather like the multipin socket on later Beetles. Such concepts never really took off until engines became fully computer managed as they are today. The engine you have in there is basically a Beetle engine with bigger bores and water pumped through the block. Then the T4's emerged and that was the end of rear-engined bug enigma really. The petrol crisis in the 70s hit VW hard and although they made efforts to redesign the basic engine, even adding fuel injection at one point, they had to accept that the future was really in a new, more modern and efficient engines.

I can't be precise but it's some kind of diagnostic plug for a VW specific gauge...now I worked at a VW main dealership back in the 80's and can't ever remember using this plug but there it is....

Martin

Thanks to everyone. I gave her a thorough work over today and shes definitely running sweeter. Road test tomorrow - assuming I can get her out of my drive - Its solid ice!

Next job is the exhaust. Its leaking like a sieve!

If you have the early exhaust sytem (and you may well have if its an 83), you might like to look at my custom silencer - lot cheaper and more long lasting than a stock one. https://club8090.co.uk/wiki/Exhausts_Custom" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not everyone likes it - its just an option. Either way, get rid of all the leaks and you'll restore the back-pressure as well as get the idling more stable.