[kadman]

Just inspected and cleaned the points and distributor cap.
All looks ok now.
But this car would never start with the positon of the ignition timing.
Its way too early

Its so far advanced I cannot get a pic down through the timing inspection hole.
Its firing about 40mm before it should. So its firing when the exhaust is closed,
and when the inlets are not fully closed. Probably backfiring up the manifold.

Its firing way too early. So I am going to do a cursory setting of TDC, and then half spoonful
of go juice down each manifold, and hit the starter.

I have a new set of bosch plugs that I will install, but leave in the existing points, at their existing gap, just to see was it this that caused the problem.

Vw points were notorious for moving, and if they did this changed the ignition timing.And this would never happen had the points hitting the cam been greased before fitting. But this was never done.

Most problems with moving vw points, was that they fully closed, then no spark, then no starting.

Just off for a cuppa now.

[zilog_jones]

Would you consider an electronic ignition conversion, or do you want to keep it as original as possible?

[kadman]

Well now that i have it running, i will keep it stock

Success.

[kadman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qNeGSJaQ9Q

[alfa beta]

Wow - this is a fantastic thread - I can't believe you've already got that engine running - absolutely brilliant - I know the old man wudda been seriously impressed!!


Can't wait to see and hear it running. The car was parked up a couple of years before I was born, so it'll be a first for me!!!


Thanks for a great thread and great pics Kadman. I'm delighted the car found such a great new owner

[davycha]

Well done , delighted to hear its running .

[kadman]

Just waiting for a battery to charge.

Engine was running, with smoke everywhere from the oil put into the cylnders to
check for compression.

And of course a startup after 53 years non running is going to be hard on batteries.

I managed a startup vid which I will post later on, but its doubtful you will see me and John

through the smoke,

[unkel]

Result! Well done man, running already and you only had the car a few days.

Can't wait for that vid

[kadman]

Starter motor was not great at the start as you know, and the continuous cranking has now
made the solenoid go off the deep end.
So....
I am putting the starter in for a rebuild tomorrow morning

[kadman]

...

[kadman]

And to bring you up to date on the position so far, and whats happening,
and what we found that possibly caused thsi car to be a non runner.

As you know there was spark at the plugs and points. So the next step was to
check the ignition timing to see where that was . As stated in earlier posts,
the timing was so far out it would never start.

So we attempted to reset the timing, but we could not revolve the distributor
far enough to accomodate this at all. Strange as the unit moved freely, but would not go
to where we needed it to go.
So we investigated further....

On early vw engines there were various distributors fitted, in short, some with a large vacuum canister
to change the advance/retard settings for the plug spark. Getting its vacuum signal from the carburretor.
There were basically 2 types of canister. Large and smaller body.

On closer inspection of the distributor body to see if there was any restriction reasons why we could
not reach the setting. We noticed that the vacuum body was clipping the distributor connection plate bolt
that holds the distributor to the engine case. Unless you knew about VW engines , this issue would be easliy
missed.And indeed it had been fitted with a large body unit, instead of a smaller one.

Solution was to remove the distributor, remove the large vacuum and replace it with a smaller one.
So distributor was taken off, but no replacement unit to hand.
Not wanting to go searching for one, we decided to take off the vacuum, and replace the distributor with out it.
And as we only wanted to fire the engine up, this would suffice.

Thats what we did, dissy on and cranked it.

Fired almost immediately, filled the place with smoke

Next plan is to fit the repaired starter, and work on getting a nicely running engine

And by the way, the "we" is myself and my brother John, who is also another VW nut, and between us we have 100 years joint experience of working on old volks. We both met alpha and assured him that we would get it running.

So we are over the first hurdle

Onwards and upwards.

[kadman]

I suspect that you now know we are both old dudes

[Gremlinertia]

Originally Posted by kadman

I suspect that you now know we are both old dudes

The older the fiddle Absolutely loving this thread, thought Alfa's thread has been amazing so far and for this to come from it!. Can't wait for the video, well done to you and your brother

[JabbaTheHut]

Great thread. Looking forward to the video.

[ba_barabus]

Best thread on Boards in years

Any chance you'd setup a Youtube channel and post regular videos?