Scirocco Register

Ok so I've got my scirocco now and from what I've been reading a common thing people do is upgrade their carb to a weber. As I'm not as mechanically minded and skilled as i would like to be I was wondering if anyone could tell me A. the benefits of this and B. how hard is it do this conversion yourself........The only things I've ever done on my own car have been spark plugs and oil filters......

captain.spaulding50 wrote:Ok so I've got my scirocco now and from what I've been reading a common thing people do is upgrade their carb to a weber. As I'm not as mechanically minded and skilled as i would like to be I was wondering if anyone could tell me A. the benefits of this and B. how hard is it do this conversion yourself........The only things I've ever done on my own car have been spark plugs and oil filters......

Hi captain.spaulding50

Although others may not agree, I reckon the Weber is not an "upgrade".
The problem is the pierburg 2e2 is a very good carb but is also quite complicated. It has lots of vac pipes, sensors and solenoids etc. Some of these are controlled by things that look like relays on the relay panel (by the passengers feet). If any of those parts are not working correctly the result is poor starting, poor performance, poor tick-over (either cold, hot or both).

So there are 2 things you can do =

1 = Once you understand the 2E2 and have removed it and checked all the thin vac pipes are sound and in the right places, then checked the solenoids (easy enough) then checked that the overun "relay" (number 61) is working (it's not actually a relay by the way - it is a complex electronic circuit inside) then alll should be good. They actually don't wear out too quickly (how many miles on your clock ?)

2 = Don't do the above and pay around £160 for the much simpler Weber (they don't give as good a fuel consumption figures as a 2E2 by the way)

Here are lots of pics to help you know what is what on the 2E2 = http://tinyurl.com/4y8d9uk and = http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/baden/2e2.htm

To answer your question, the Weber is easy to fit and if you buy new, the instructions supplied are easy to follow and almost anyone can do it.

btw, a spare 2E2 to learn on can be got from a breakers for £20 or £30 esp if you get it off a Passat as the breakers yards don't charge as much for Passat bits for some reason ;)

ghost123uk wrote:Although others may not agree, I reckon the Weber is not an "upgrade".

bang on the money. the weber is a very basic carb. this in turn gives improved reliability, as there is very little that can go wrong. the pierburg is very very complex, and has loads of different ways it can break down. add this to the fact that there are very few garages out there who still have a mechanic who knows how to set these things up properly and you'll understand why people seem almost scared of them.

if you're not having any problems with the pierburg, and you're managing to get good mpg and performance from the car, then don't worry about it as the pierburg is a far superior (and slightly larger) carb and will give you better performance and economy over the weber.

you will find lots of people will tell you that they had mahoosive power gains from fitting a weber, but this is because the pierburg it replaced wasn't working correctly

if you're only having problems with the autochoke, then consider a manual choke conversion. i had quite a bit of luck obtaining these from smaller engined mk2 astras and chavaliers, which used the 2E3 carb, and the manual choke gubbins will swap straight across. admittedly, these are getting rarer in the breakers now

if you are still set on fitting a weber, get yourself to the scrappy! i've managed to find a fair few of them on mk2 golfs, and have yet to pay over £25 for one.

Cheers for the advice there. I do seem to be having problems with the auto choke (so I've been told) when I start the engine on a morning it idles at just over 2000 rpm and makes a loud ticking noise, drive for a couple of miles and it both idles fine and the noise disappears. One of my brothers mates told me it could quite probably be the auto choke.

The clock is showing only 39000 but works intermittently so I am assuming it actually has more.

To be honest I didn't really want to shell out on a new carb unless it was gonna make a huge improvement. I think I will go and get ahold of a pierburg from a scrappy and see if I can manage to teach myself a bit more about them, cheers for the useful links too.

Anyone any ideas on the idle problem?

captain.spaulding50 wrote:Cheers for the advice there. I do seem to be having problems with the auto choke (so I've been told) when I start the engine on a morning it idles at just over 2000 rpm and makes a loud ticking noise, drive for a couple of miles and it both idles fine and the noise disappears. One of my brothers mates told me it could quite probably be the auto choke.

The ticking is more likely one or more of the hydraulic tappets has gone a bit sticky, an oil & filter change and a good long run may well free them up. If not, changing them is not a big job. Or they can be stripped, cleaned, re-primed and often come good.

No disrespect, but take any advice from your brother's mate with a pinch of salt !

Checking the auto choke (that does give problems but NOT the 2000 rpm cold tickover problem) is easy. The primary intake has the choke flap at the top. On a cool day it should be closed or very nearly closed. As the engine warms up it should open until, when the engine is fully warm, that flap should be fully open. If it does not do these things then the auto choke unit MAY be duff. BUT, it may not be as it is fed with water via the inlet manifold and there is a rubber "O" ring in the manifold that has a habit of gunging up and blocking the flow of water to the auto choke. Easy to check = is the body of the auto choke very hot to touch when the engine is up to temp.

The fast tickover could be due to either a leaking vac pipe (there are 10 of them in total on the carb !) or it could be the waxstat (called the "expansion element" in the Haynes) is stuck (see diagrams = thing on the front of the carb like an elbow with 2 water pipes going to it) this can be tested by examining the position of it's plunger, then chucking it in a pan of boiling water and checking that the plunger moves outwards, (apparently this procedure can fix a faulty one, I read that somewhere, never tried it). Or it could be other things too !

Check the pushrod on the big metal disk thing on the driverside of the carb. On cold start up it should retract (by vacuum) then as the engine warms up it should suddenly move back out and touch the threaded screw on the bracket. Does it do that ? = If not post back and say and I will tell you what to check.

So, check the above first before you start adjusting things. If you are going to adjust things, make a note in the back of your Haynes of what adjustments you made in case you need to put them back later. Don't rely on memory, trust me, I know !

captain.spaulding50 wrote:To be honest I didn't really want to shell out on a new carb unless it was gonna make a huge improvement. I think I will go and get hold of a pierburg from a scrappy and see if I can manage to teach myself a bit more about them, cheers for the useful links too.

That is a good plan (and what I did :) )
Grab some bits of same size vacuum tubing of any other car while you are there, it is often needed !

Cheers for your help mate, I'm gonna check / try and do these procedures hopefully tuesday (if it's stopped raining by then. But yeah I know what you mean about a pinch of salt.......
Once again cheers you've been really helpful, I'll let you know I get on inspecting etc.

Hi mate and welcome to the forum. The Scirocco with a pierburg should be started without touching the accelerator, once started it will idle high so just blip the accelerator pedal once and if it is working correctly it should drop down to about 1500 rpm. If it doesn't do this then the waxstat is usually the culprit. As the engine warms up the idle progressively reduces to normal (about 850rpm) when the warm coolant gets the auto choke to come off.
Rob

Hi Rob, yeah thats exactly what happens but giving the accelerator pedal a good blip doesn't cure it, it normally takes about 5 - 10 mins to idle normally. It does start without touching the pedal when it's cold but when it warms up and after say a 10 mile drive, turn the ignition off try to start it again, you have to press on the pedal! I'm watching a carb on ebay currently @ 99p ending soon, I'm hopefully gonna grab that, check out the diagrams etc and try get acquainted with it before messing about with the one on the car.

Ok.....so I finally got some spare time today and checked a few things. Firstly I got a second hand 2e2 for £8 (score!) so I thought I'd put its waxstat in some boiling water to see what happened so I could compare it to the one one the car. The one already fitted didn't seem to expand as far or as quick as the one from the second hand carb, so I swapped them over and the engine idled high (but not as high as previously) then dropped to just under 1000 after about a minute, bingo I thought, until the engine started idling extremely rough after about another 30 secs, bit of smoke out the exhaust too, so I put the old waxstat back on.

I also checked the choke flap, it was warm today and it was only slightly open before starting the engine. It fully opened as the engine got up to temperature.
I checked that the push rod thing on the metal disc, it retracted instantly then eventually came back into position but didn't quite touch the screw.
All vac pipes seem to be fine and appear to be in the right places.

So Ghost you were on about relay overrun and solenoids? I really don't know how to check these, any pointers?

Also you mentioned about an o ring in the inlet manifold...........as I mentioned before I'm not that clued up so inlet manifold is where?
cheers again
Steven

captain.spaulding50 wrote:Ok.....so I finally got some spare time today and checked a few things. Firstly I got a second hand 2e2 for £8 (score!) so I thought I'd put its waxstat in some boiling water to see what happened so I could compare it to the one one the car. The one already fitted didn't seem to expand as far or as quick as the one from the second hand carb, so I swapped them over and the engine idled high (but not as high as previously) then dropped to just under 1000 after about a minute, bingo I thought, until the engine started idling extremely rough after about another 30 secs, bit of smoke out the exhaust too, so I put the old waxstat back on.

I also checked the choke flap, it was warm today and it was only slightly open before starting the engine. It fully opened as the engine got up to temperature.

All vac pipes seem to be fine and appear to be in the right places.

Well that all seems OK then, except = "I checked that the push rod thing on the metal disc, it retracted instantly then eventually came back into position but didn't quite touch the screw." I don't think that is quite right but it is now a fortnight since I was checking ours. I just got a new "Relay61" (top right of relay board, longer than you average "relay" - 61 is not a relay but a quite complicated circuit to do with what we are discussing) - I will fit my new one tonight, and providing my hot tick-over goes back to normal (and I am pretty confident it will) I will then check the "action" of that push rop on the "three four point unit " (whatever that means !) and report back.

captain.spaulding50 wrote:So Ghost you were on about relay overrun and solenoids? I really don't know how to check these, any pointers?

See above ;) - As far as I know, because it is not actually a relay, there is no way to check it other than by substituting a known good one ( I hope my second hand one sourced from on here is a good one )

captain.spaulding50 wrote:Also you mentioned about an o ring in the inlet manifold...........as I mentioned before I'm not that clued up so inlet manifold is where?

If your auto choke is coming off OK you have no issue there. The "O" ring (seal) is in the inlet manifold and takes hot water from the head, through the manifold and then via a rubber pipe to the auto choke. They can get perished and block up the flow of water to the auto choke, but yours obviously ain't blocked because your choke flap is opening right up as it should as the engine warms up.

Oh hang on, I just note you said "so inlet manifold is where" = it's the big aluminium thing that runs across the back of the cylinder head and is under the carb. It distributes the fuel / air mixture from the carb to each of the 4 "inlets" to the 4 cylinders.

Have you got a Haynes book ?
If not, get one and spend an evening genning up on stuff, it's quite interesting and will help you understand what bits do (tho some of the stuff we have been talking about is only very lightly covered).
Mind you the electrical wiring section was written by a plumber I reckon

haha I got my haynes manual arriving in the post shortly, I've been waiting on amazon marketplace sellers slow asses! Cheers for your help mate, I really appreciate it and I'm sure I'll learn more as I go. There's a gtx turned up in the scrappy up the road for me, I'm gonna go and see what I can salvage, might grab me the relay thingy.

Cheers

captain.spaulding50 wrote:There's a gtx turned up in the scrappy up the road for me, I'm gonna go and see what I can salvage, might grab me the relay thingy.

Cheers

Stop Stop = a GTX is fuel injection so will not have a "relay 61" because they are for the hot tick-over and overrun cut-off on a CARB model

Yeah.....I found that out when I got there, but none the less I got a rear view mirror, window winders and front grill for a tenner, so not bad for an afternoon out!