Scirocco Register

hiltow wrote:(holes don't plug themselves!).

Technically... they do (ish)

I had a carb gasket go on me, when the car was cold, started fine, once it'd warmed up (and the gasket was nice and pliable... ) air hole emerged in the gasket... cak running. I only found it by accident when I leant on the filter box to take a look behind the engine and pushed it off tilt. Could hear the air screaming it's way in through the hole.

Once the car was cold... gasket stiff... no problem.

I'm not saying this IS the issue, but might be worth investigating (just pushing the carb side to side would be enough to open up a hole if it was present.)

Carb gasket is brand new, so there's no cracks in it. Similarly, any contraction in a manifold gasket fissure once the engine had cooled would have meant that it probably would have started - but it didn't. Anyway, I now know that the problem is not caused by any air leaks.

The cause of the problem was........the distributor timing!

A professional meachanic came out to look at it today. Slackened off the dizzy whilst I turned the engine over. Gradually, the engine wanted to run on it's own once the dizzy had been moved. The car now starts, on it's own as the dizzy has now been locked down in the sweet spot for ignition. The timing (and carb idle & Co2 after the rebuild) will need to be set properly, so the plan of action now that the car is drivable again is to insure it, book it in for MOT (so I can get it to the pro's garage legally), get the timing and carb settings set 100% and then use the car.

As the distributor appears to be losing timing of it's own will, the dizzy will also be marked up before it leaves the garage so that if the car breaks down again afterwords we can prove whether it actually IS the dizzy. It'll then give me enough time to track down a like for like replacement or the parts to repair my original unit. Apparantly, although rare, dizzys can lose timing on their own if there's aproblem with the bon weights or pin inside the unit. Similarly, there could be a chip on one of the gear drives either on the unit or the engine that's been caused by someone badly fitting the dizzy cap in the past causing the rotor to smash into it inside the cap - apparantly this can be another cause of dizzy's losing their own timing.

I'm not out of the woods yet in this, but afer today I'm now back on my feet again and starting on the path out of there! So satisfying to actually hear that engine start after all this time - after all that's been done I was beginning to think that it never would do again!

hiltow wrote:C the dizzy will also be marked up before it leaves the garage so that if the car breaks down again afterwords we can prove whether it actually IS the dizzy.

if the problem is due to the internals, as opposed to the bolt being loose and the dizzy body moving, them marking it will do bugger all, sorry!

Of course - I forgot to mention that the unit will be taken off and inspected first before being refitted.

For now, the main thing is that the car's running which allows me to get an MOT and get some use out of it over the rest of the summer. Also buys me some time to research whether I can get my original (now obsolete) unit reconditioned / track down a suitable replacement.

Well, things now appear to have sorted themselves out at very long last!

Car is now running, MOT'd , taxed and ready for me to enjoy the rest of the summer with!

After the last post I went out and bought the cheap copy £45 distributor from GSF - this got the car running so and allowed us to get the original dizzy inspected.

Whilst I'm still racking up a few miles, I know that if the car breaks down again the fault was in the engine-based drive to the dizzy and not the dizzy itself. I also know that if it doesn't break down the fault was definitely in the dizzy itself.

So far, the latest is that the original dizzy doesn't have any wear in it so any fault is likely to be in the electrical gubbins inside it - parts are available from Bosch, so it is possible for me to repair it and keep the original dizzy.

So, a note to add to the knowledge book for everyone on here (gained at my expense!) for wnyone to check who has this kind of problem with their car:

Distributors do lose their own timing and can be the cause of your car running fine one minute and then breaking down.