Scirocco Register

HELP!

After changing the head gasket and cambelt (while I was there) i've just put it back together and the engine will not fire! The starter motor is turning everything fine, I can smell fuel due the fact i've tried it a few times and probably flooded it! A friend who had a mk1 golf told me that due to the camshaft doing 4 turns tot he bottom ends 1 turn try turning the camshaft through 360 degrees to line it up. That worked for him then, but not for me now.

What could it be?

Cheers for any help.

Your mate is no mechanic.

The cam turns once for every two revolutions (or 4 strokes) of the engine.

Cam timing is the first thing I'd check (has it coughed or banged at all?) and also that you're getting a spark. Pull a spark plug out, put it back in the lead, and sit it on the inlet manifold to earth the plug body. You should see it sparking when the engine cranks over.

Haynes manuals have a pretty good description of how to set the cam to crank timing, but read it carefully.

the timing belt is probably not on correctly. beware, sometimes the pulleys can have more than 1 mark on. the one that drives thye distributor is the most likely to be wrong

Dont forget theres also the intermidiate shaft.... the one that turns the dizz rotor, oil pump and somethign else, this shaft needs linign up correctly too!



..just a note... your mate said "turn the crank shaft through 360 degrees" .....well there is only 360 degrees in one revolution.. he wants you to reotate the shaft a complete rev, so he wants you to take the belt off, turn the shaft round, finishing up exatly where you started, and put hte belt back on.... what bleeding good is that going to do?




sounds alittle imcompetant to me!




besides gettign a garage to do it for you, a hanes manual, you could (after checkign the timing marks on at least the cam and crank shafts) get someone to turn the key and you turn the dizzy till it fires ...then set it put proper with a timing strobe.






just my two cents!

Jay4424 wrote:you could (after checkign the timing marks on at least the cam and crank shafts) get someone to turn the key and you turn the dizzy till it fires ...then set it put proper with a timing strobe.

easier to set the engine so the cam is at TDC, then check crank is also at TDC. pop the dizzy cap off and then rotate the dizzy until the arm is lined up with the nick in the rim of the dizzy body

Jay4424 wrote:he wants you to reotate the shaft a complete rev, so he wants you to take the belt off, turn the shaft round, finishing up exatly where you started, and put hte belt back on.... what bleeding good is that going to do?

It'll rotate the dizzy half a turn, which if the cam has gone on 180 degrees out compared to the head would put it back in line.

The quickest method of finding out if this is needed is to just swap opposing leads on the dizzy. So 1 with 3 and 2 with 4. If it fires then you've found your problem.

Sorry!

That was my fault about the 4 to 1 thing. I've just re-read what I wrote and god knows what I was thinking when I typed that out. He never said that.

Anyway, I'm currently at Silverstone (lucky me) so I'll look into it again on Monday. But I've been thinking on it and I recon the drive for the dizzy and whatever must be wrong. I think there is another mark I'll try lining up on.

I'll let you know.

Ha ha!

It's running!

What I had done wrong was use the wrong mark on the cam shaft cog! All good now but I have a noisy metallic sound from the belt area. Tennsioner needs replacing?

Cheers for all help and info! I'm happy cos I'll hopfully make the national meet now!

GRINNER wrote:Tennsioner needs replacing?

you should always fit a new tensioner with a new belt. the extra tension from a new belt will usually see off a used tensioner very quickly

Well the new tensioner just went in and all was looking good........

.....then my water tank filled up with the "mayo" again!?!?!?!?!?!? And over flowed, I then checked the dipostick to find no oil! (I had flushed and filled it with new oil yesterday)

So something has gone very wrong somrwhere as this is a new problem, as the gasket was going I was loosing water, now its the opposet. Something in the bottom end ha d gone do you think? Something I had no chance of seeing?

Is my Scirocco dead?

did you have the head skimmed and tested?

did you use new bolts?

Yep new bolts and the head got done at an engineering place, it looked good.

any chance it could be the remains of previous contamination? oil/water cooler fubared?

I put on a new water cooled oil cooler last year so I'd be suprised if that'd gone. Then top of the block was cleaned before I put it all together.
I've seen big boys toys do a recon engine for £599 + my old engine. Could be the way forward.

guys in the aircooled world warned me away from their recon engines. don't know if that was just the lawnmowers or if it included watercooled too.

why not use it as an excuse to chuck a 2E or similar in it?