The Burd's MK1 Golf Rivage - Cleaned and Prepped for Use 01/05/25

[Skizzer]

8 minutes ago, Tamworthbay said:

From my joyous* experience with the related Bosch Motronic system, I would be looking at how the ecu knows where the throttle is. My best bit of advice is also the worst you can ever hear, you may just need to go through each and every component checking against the spec. I chased so many possible problems based on what ‘commonly’ goes wrong and the frustrating aspect was that often a part seemed to be at fault when actually it was just responding to incorrect information coming from the ecu due to a different problem that took a lot more finding. Once you understand them they aren’t tooooooo bad but it takes time if you have been groomed on carbs like wot I haz.

Very wise words, but the ECU-driven Motronic is a good deal cleverer than the K-Jetronic which is largely mechanical.  So in this case it’s more about vacuum hoses and stuff rather than ECUs.

K-Jet is basically like a carburettor but with a needle for each cylinder. 

[320touring]

Yep, I am hoping the simplicity* works in my favour..

 

You never know, new cap and arm may just be the ticket

[Blindpotimism]

[Tamworthbay]

34 minutes ago, Skizzer said:

Very wise words, but the ECU-driven Motronic is a good deal cleverer than the K-Jetronic which is largely mechanical.  So in this case it’s more about vacuum hoses and stuff rather than ECUs.

K-Jet is basically like a carburettor but with a needle for each cylinder. 

I was under the (mis?)understanding that The K jetronic had a small standalone ecu a bit like the motronic? Was that just the KE? Certainly one less thing to worry about and a lot less hassle if that’s the case.

[Skizzer]

Yup, that’s the E bit in the KE-Jet.

[Noel Tidybeard]

is there moar than one coolant sensor- "brain*" thinks donk is kalt & pulls out the "choke" hence the rich smell

[Fraz]

I love this car 

 

 

TOP BANTS

[drewd]

I've not owned a K Jet car in at least 11 years so my memory is a little hazy but my old Audi 80 Sport had pretty much the same engine as this and I loved it.

The warm up regulator adjusts the fuel enrichment I believe. From memory it has a bi metallic spring and enriches the mixture by allowing more fuel to flow through the metering head. As the bi metallic spring expands as the engine warms up it weakens the mixture. I'd read up on this as it might be gummed up with old fuel. Also are the injector seals good? 

[320touring]

Thanks for the insight re cold start - the car has a cold start injector in the far end of the inlet.

Injector seals are something I don't want to get into unless they are the last resort.

Rotor arm and cap being collected at lunchtime - I shall fit and see if I have any luck...

 

Expect an update/swearing this evening:)

[drewd]

Ah yes, the cold start injector. That's a separate item to the warm up regulator, it operates on a thermo time switch. I think mine used to stay on too long as it would always start better with it unplugged. I never worked out why.

Hopefully the cap and arm will sort it. On my Audi the rev limiter was built into the rotor arm, the centrifugal force of it rotating above a certain RPM broke the continuity across the arm. The cheap rotor arm I fitted didn't have this so there was effectively no rev limiter. They were fun times.

[320touring]

An interesting session on this today

First up, new rotor arm and cap were fitted - definitely better than what was on the car..

 

 

I also took the opportunity to pull and clean the plugs.

Two looked good 

Two looked wet and rich

 

All done, I put it back together and decided to test...

 

[dieselassist]

have you checked the coil n the wiring to the coil? A mate of mine has a mk1 gti tintop n it had similar 'running n idling like shit' woes; he has a few of these mk1 gti's so went the usual route here of 'swopping metering heads' about between cars, which didn't solve the problem - he eventually had it trailered away 120 miles to an old school specialist who diagnosed n fixed the coil wiring...

there seems to be a thriving market here for 'metering heads' - my mate above buys them as spares, n they are often robbed out cars fellas have in storage...

We've a DX stashed away for years for my brothers 'bought engineless' years ago 84 mk1 cabriolet project; got the tank fuel system n full wiring loom from a 38k miles mk2 scirocco I bought cheap; engine's been out n sat up a few years; hes anxious to get the ball rolling on it soon; its one of those rare occasions where I will 'relish' the wiring side but FEAR putting all the mechanicals in making them work... !!

[320touring]

After that success* it was time to chase down other potential suspects..

First up was to check on the coil - I cleaned up the contacts

Then moved onto the main earth lead

It had a new earth lead fitted when the starter and timing belt were done. Cleaning up the contact points helped re the starting, but didn't fix the missfire.

Next up was the vacuum advance pipe on the dizzy

This will need replacement - but I managed to get it to seal better.

Last thing to try on the ignition side was to disconnect the ignition amplifier that feeds into the dizzy.

This turned out to stop the car from starting at all - so it was obviously sending a signal, and the dizzy was responding correctly.

 

With as much as I could ascertain on the ignition side seeming ok, I turned my thoughts back to fuel..

First up was to see if the injectors were getting fuel ok - easily enough done by cracking the fuel lines one at a time -

 

This revealed one cylinder which didn't alter the sound of the engine when loosened. Possibly a blocked or failed injector?

As the car warmed up, the missfire got less noticeable.

 

 

My next thoughts are:

Trace what injector is fed by the line that makes no difference. I can get new injectors (£30ish each) and the more I think about it, the more the car sounds similar to my Clio 172 when the injector failed.

The fact that the other 3 cyls changed to e suggests that the fuel pumps and metering head are working ok?!

I'll also do a compression test to be sure there are no further underlying issues.

[320touring]

2 minutes ago, dieselassist said:

have you checked the coil n the wiring to the coil? A mate of mine has a mk1 gti tintop n it had similar 'running n idling like shit' woes; he has a few of these mk1 gti's so went the usual route here of 'swopping metering heads' about between cars, which didn't solve the problem - he eventually had it trailered away 120 miles to an old school specialist who diagnosed n fixed the coil wiring...

there seems to be a thriving market here for 'metering heads' - my mate above buys them as spares, n they are often robbed out cars fellas have in storage...

We've a DX stashed away for years for my brothers 'bought engineless' years ago 84 mk1 cabriolet project; got the tank fuel system n full wiring loom from a 38k miles mk2 scirocco I bought cheap; engine's been out n sat up a few years; hes anxious to get the ball rolling on it soon; its one of those rare occasions where I will 'relish' the wiring side but FEAR putting all the mechanicals in making them work... !!

Coil is a possibility, but the post directly above seems to pint to it being on the fuel side - only one way to find out..

[Fumbler]

To me it sounds like poor fuelling. I'd check out the injector like you said and see if it's blocked. Apologies in advance for not reading if this has been mentioned, but have you had all of the spark plugs out with the HT leads still attached to see if all of the plugs are sparking?

[Barry Cade]

Injectors on these tend to dribble and spit fuel in ,rather than the fine mist they should have when old or have been left sitting. They dribble when shut down too, so gives poor cold starting, and running on a cylinder or 2 down rather than all 4. They will probably start and run rough untill the excess fuel is burned off, and run lumpy after that. Pull the injector out and check the spray pattern in a jam jar..if it's not a fine mist-Try some Seafoam-good stuff!

[320touring]

Sound like may need to deploy the remonstrating fluid onto the injectors and pull out the suspect one.

I'm assuming the seals will be fucked, so shall have a scout to see if I can find them first..

[big_al_granvia]

assume you have checked ht leads???? still tempted to try swapping coil

[320touring]

Injector seals have been ordered and are winging their way to me via the power of the internets.

Hopefully arrive tomorrow, off out to spray some remonstrating fluid on the injectors.

[Split_Pin]

Had a listen and as you alluded to,  it sounds like my 172 did when an injector died. Popping, misfiring and flat out 45mph on the motorway.

[stuboy]

good to see some progress

[320touring]

A bit more done on this today with the help of Davehedgehog31:)

First up - time to check the injector that was suspected of not firing.  Tracing the line from the metering head, it was #4 that was potentially at fault.

 

The initial task was to take reference pictures before removing loads of vacuum pipes to allow access.

then we removed the 2 pipes from the inlet boot, the pipe from the bottom of the air box and the throttle cable.

This didn't yield enough room, so the inlet pipe had to be detached and removed completely.

 

This done, you could see the quarry.

The injectors are just an interference fit - with the seals ensuring they are located properly.

 

We loosened the line for #4 At the metering head so we had slack in the line, later removing the line completely from the metering head to allow us to angle and pull the injector out.

With some levering via a screwdriver, and some patience, we were rewarded with the view below.

Time to rig up a test setup and see what happens (after we rebuilt the inlet and the vac system!)

The bottle remained empty regardless of the amount of cranking.

So it looks like that injector is duff.

Solved, right?

 

Not quite.

The car wouldn't always crank, despite the immobilizer being off - quite often you were met with silence and no effort when the key was turned. Even the fuel pumps would not prime.

We suspect that the immobilizer is wonky - adding to our issues. I may need to see if I can source a shiter who speaks electric so we can remove it from the car.

At a score of 1-1 for win/fail, we decided to go for an all out shot at glory -

Crack out the compression tester!

All cylinders recorded between 150-160 psi dry, so we know the headgasket is good.

We also tested for spark when plugs were out - seemed reliable, if a little yellow. 

 

So currently we have a duff injector, a possible immobilizer fault and a need to plan a way forward..

 

Anyone any ideas? Or willing to help re the immobilizer issue?

 

Ta!

 

[3VOM]

Is the immobiliser an aftermarket one, I didn't think Mk1 Golfs had them as standard. I'd expect the dealer to have put one on when first supplied or it to have been fitted early in its life by an alarm company.

[davehedgehog31]

34 minutes ago, 3VOM said:

Is the immobiliser an aftermarket one, I didn't think Mk1 Golfs had them as standard. I'd expect the dealer to have put one on when first supplied or it to have been fitted early in its life by an alarm company.

It looks like an aftermarket one, albeit a neat install. 

[chodweaver]

Are ignition switches a weakness on these? I've experienced a couple of other cars with poltergeist levels of start, and read about plenty more, where the ign sw was just so worn it wouldn't reliably either: keep the ign on when turned to 'Start' (i.e. you turn the key to crank and everything dies, like you just killed the battery) or: it fails to energise the solenoid so no cranking, not even a click, but the ign circuit stays live.

Sent from my BV6000 using Tapatalk

[dieselassist]

...it shouldnt be too hard to remove any aftermarket immobiliser stuff from one of these; these seem to use either black or white 'numbered' wires, or really thin coloured wire, the same grade you find in a 90s household telephone; the often fit them by saddling the wires, or at the back of the fuseboard snipping the wires to the fuel pump n connecting them onto the 'mystery box' with the flashing LED ...you should be able to identify the thicker factory wiring n resolder the connections- it is very time consuming n fiddly but 'very do0able'...

...I was once called upon to remove an alarm/immobiliser from a mk2 GTI that started life as LHD, m was converted to RHD by a previous owner who was a mechanic; to extend the colum, switches and instrument loom he just used 'whatever' colour wire the right length to extend the wires; It was therefor 'doubly confusing' ....the car was a non starter for two years n the owner was ready to give up on it....- I managed to get the immobiliser n alarm out n tidy up the loom extension a bit; I had 'all night' in a unit in an industrial estate to do it... I managed to get the car started; much to the owners surprise...

[320touring]

9 hours ago, chodweaver said:

Are ignition switches a weakness on these? I've experienced a couple of other cars with poltergeist levels of start, and read about plenty more, where the ign sw was just so worn it wouldn't reliably either: keep the ign on when turned to 'Start' (i.e. you turn the key to crank and everything dies, like you just killed the battery) or: it fails to energise the solenoid so no cranking, not even a click, but the ign circuit stays live.

Sent from my BV6000 using Tapatalk
 

Good point - it would show similar symptoms...

[320touring]

Today was the day to tackle the injector on this:

Locate injector and apply remonstrating fluid

Place 12/14mm spanners on appropriate unions and unscrew

Marvel at the fact its the WRONG FUCKING INJECTOR

The top thread is too large for the line connection, so I have had to message the vendor and ask to return the injector for a refund or swap.

I decided to try cranking it anyway to see if I got fuel out the line.

 

It turned over twice, didn't fire and refuses to crank at all now, so I think the ignition switch is away.

 

Tools packed up and came in for a cuppa.

 

[Skizzer]

☹️

[320touring]

15 minutes ago, Skizzer said:

☹️

At least remonstrating fluid remains undefeated:)

[320touring]

Today I tackled this again..

The new injector was prepared and fitted, then placed in a flowchamber(TM) to observe if any flow

After significant cranking, farkall came through ( stuff in the base of the bottle was already there).

The ignition switch was also proving temperamental - removing and refitting the connector at the back helped, and also helped me find where the immobilizer is wired* in.

Some reading revealed that the injectors should "pop" open when they see about 3 bar of pressure. This was obviously not happening.

My disc flap (which actuates the metering pin) moves freely and seems to be in correct place.

It is getting fuel to cold start injector, as it'll cough to life on first fire but nothing after that.

Taking the injection lines off showed no pressure at the outlets.

The Cold start injector connection on the metering head had pressure when I cracked it. This is below where the fuel metering pin works - suggesting a blockage in the top of the metering head. I.e. fuel not getting past the metering pin to the injector lines.

I stripped the metering head off the car 

And am currently reading up on how it goes together to see if I can service/clean it.

 

In the meantime, I tested to see if the fuel flow from tank to the metering head was ok..

This was about 3 seconds cranking - suggesting the main and lift pumps are acting ok.

 

The fuel, on the other hand...

 

Bearing in mind it has done approx 380 miles, and had at least 3 lots of fresh fuel (partial tanks) during those miles.

Initial thoughts are as follows:

1. Clean out the injector lines

2. Clean/service the kjet metering head

3. Rebuild the injection system (possibly with a new fuel pump relay)

4. Test with the lift pump drawing clean fuel from a can

 

Time to read/swear/source parts ..