GolfGTIforum.co.uk
Model specific boards => Golf mk3 => Topic started by: neil_1821 on 12 February 2007, 11:25
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Over the past few weeks my car has developed a problem, it's only done it twice but the engine just seems to die while driving. Only thing is i usually have my music on to drown out the road noise so i dontknow if it's sudden or not. Now the thing i cant understand is when it happened last night, it started fine, did a 64 mile journey and just coming down the road in second gear rolling to the drive and it's fine, then i go to turn onto the drive and the sterringis hard and i know straight away my engines died. Any ideas what it is?
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relays 30 or 167, sensor fault, throttle cable stretched (on 8v ADY motor), air leak from any thicker hoses.
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yeah the thick one i think its to the MAF (to the air filter box anyway!) can cause this i know that, but this problem is usually coupled with dodgy starting too, correct me if im wrong.
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Ok, i'll have to check around, hasnt done it again as yet but i was having starter problems but that was the solenoid on the starter motor :grin:
Have to go over the car with a fine tooth comb :embarassed:
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my car started cutting out, and over a few weeks became worse until it wouldn't idle at all and became very hard to start.
I took advice here and stripped off the throttle body and cleaned it - perfect! You have to remove ALL traces of carbon from the bore and butterfly as the idle-air gap is teenyweeny and sooty fumes from the breather pipe will block it easily - then the ecu cant tell if the throttle is closed or not and the engine hunts when idling, finally it wont idle at all so when you dip the clutch while driving it cuts out immediately.
Hope this helps.
btw when doing it - just unclip the two heater hoses that run to the TB at the other ends i.e. one goes to the expansion bottle and the other goes to the thermostat elbow. Plug the little stub it goes to on this one with a small allen key or similar so as not to lose your anti-freeze/coolant.
Takes about an hour to do - the bolts holding the TB on are allen or torx headed and the bottom 2 are awkward - need a long key or screwdriver type torx tool to reach.
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i've been meaning to strip the throttle body down for a while, to see if i get any better response and sometimes idelling.
Thanks for the advice.
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Join the clun Neil...lol
Mine idles perfectly at all times... does that mean it's unlikely mine is the TB?
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so you have all of the above but idles fine always?
a sure sign of a ganked up TB is if you thrapp the car a bit, take it up to about 5k revs (or as high as you want!) you should notice some progressive acceleration taking place e. g higher revs = more pull ( up to a point anyway, then it will start to tail off again) if not, it would be worth a clean, the dying problem though, the post about relay 30 would be a good place to start.
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so you have all of the above but idles fine always?
a sure sign of a ganked up TB is if you thrapp the car a bit, take it up to about 5k revs (or as high as you want!) you should notice some progressive acceleration taking place e. g higher revs = more pull ( up to a point anyway, then it will start to tail off again) if not, it would be worth a clean, the dying problem though, the post about relay 30 would be a good place to start.
It'snot the throttle body then :smiley:
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Listen - the idle air gap at the butterfly when its closed is about 0.25mm....
If sooty crap builds up it blocks this tiny gap and causes the car to stall when idling or when the clutch is dipped say coming to a turn or junction. If it will rev ok but wont idle then this is proof positive that the TB is dirty.
A caked up TB ONLY affects the idle and very low throttle behaviour as when the throttle is open further the blockage is too small to affect it.
relays etc cause cutting out even at high revs. If you were doing 140 and the ecu or fuel pump relays jam - the engine will cut out and decelerate like youd run out of petrol. Then it wouldnt start for several seconds to several minutes till the relay drops back to normal postion, cools or whatever and works again (or not lol)
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Well both times when the engine died i dipped the clutch cause i was coming to a strat and i notice sometimes if i boot it while stationary up to around 4000 rpm and let it idle down sometimes it'll drop to about 600 rpm so i'm gonna give the throttle body a bloody good clean when i get time and let you know if it's made any difference.
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for what its worth - those are exactly the same symptoms I had when the TB on my Alfa156 got gunged up...
Cleaned it & they went away. :smiley:
And then came back becuase it was an Alfa & they do that...
DD :cool:
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Does anyone have a procedure for cleaning out the throttle body? With pictures if possible. Do things need to be technically reset after performing such a job. I am not a mechanic and so a little worried about upsetting something when I attempt the clean.
In addition to the stalling most times when clutch is dipped on slowing down, I've noticed that as it is sat idling, it is sat at around 800rpm dipping to 750 rpm. This to me is unsettled idling and so I am thinking that the throttle body clog-up is getting progressivly worse and so the idling is doing what it is doing. What are your GTI's idling at - I thought that it was a little low and should be at 850 - 900 though I know very little about this.
Any recommendations on what type of carbon cleaner to use?
Thanks
Julee
Hopefully the sequence of emotions will be:- :sick: :lipsrsealed: :cry: :sad: :huh: :shocked: :smiley: :laugh: :grin:
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Does anyone have a procedure for cleaning out the throttle body?
Try this thread, it's in there somewhere...http://www.golfgtiforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=2080.0 (http://www.golfgtiforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=2080.0)
And cheers EvilScotsman, there's probably no harm in cleaning it out anyway, but I've changed the fuel pump relay and it seems OK for now... I won't know if it's done the job for a while yet possibly (it goes for anytime between 5 mins and 5 months to cutout!). I'd like to try one thing at a time... I'd bought it by the time I saw the TB info. I wanted the ECU relay, but the stealers said my car didn't use one and they didn't have one anyway... :laugh:
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and it seems OK for now...
Famous last words :grin:
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The sysmptoms of my GTi were :-
Stalling when slowing, mainly at junctions. Seemed to happen when clutch was dipped at junctions/lights, though the stalling could be got round by dancing a little on the clutch/accelerator. The rev counter showed erratic idling at 800, dipping to 750.
Just bought some carb cleaner for a fiver. Took the hard pipe off on the side of the throttle box to check the condition of the butterfly and it was caked especially around the edges, where I believe the clearance is rather important.
(http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s278/julee200/golf/tbvdirty.jpg)
(http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s278/julee200/golf/tbdirty.jpg)
(http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s278/julee200/golf/tbclean.jpg)
This pic shows the edge of the butterfly after I scraped off a little gunk.
So, I cleaned it out with the carb cleaner. Sorry didn't take any piccs after clean.
After re-assembly, I took it for a test drive. I niticed that the idle was a lot more sharper at around 925 and it was stable. Took it for a drive, purposely finding as many lights and juctions as I could, and guess what. It did not stall. It has only been on a 15 minute drive but this used to be enough for it to stall umpteen times. I will let you know how it goes.
As I was cleaning it, I found the hose connected to the hard piping full of gunk. Can anyone tell me what the red circled box is in the following picture, and what the red arrowed hose does - this was full of gunk!!
I would like to perform a more thorough clean when I know what I am doing.
(http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s278/julee200/golf/engineq.jpg)
Hope some of this helps anyone out there with similar problems.
JULEE
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Wow, my carb compared to yours is like 10 times worse, better have a good ol clean next weekend.
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and it seems OK for now...
Famous last words :grin:
and they aren't my last words... it stalled again a few times... now I've had a quick clean of the butterfly as described by Julee... can't say it looked 'gunked' though, but it hasn't stalled again yet...
BTW, I tried to get an ECU relay from GSF and another local parts factors and they said it's a dealer part... the dealers said last week that my car doesn't have an ECU relay... if I need it, I think a visit to the scappy is in order...
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Julee,
the black plastic box is just a cover for the crankcase breather valve - i only know this because i have had to replace the breather hose that connects to it. I believe its purpose is to draw oilgases/fumes away from the engine during running. Mine too was fully gunked and so thoroughly cleaned it out with carb cleaner along with the throttle body and my idling problems have now gone, although mine wasnt cutting out or stalling.
Andy
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and it seems OK for now...
Famous last words :grin:
and they aren't my last words... it stalled again a few times... now I've had a quick clean of the butterfly as described by Julee... can't say it looked 'gunked' though, but it hasn't stalled again yet...
BTW, I tried to get an ECU relay from GSF and another local parts factors and they said it's a dealer part... the dealers said last week that my car doesn't have an ECU relay... if I need it, I think a visit to the scappy is in order...
It cutout again!... happy days... it's so frustrating because it's perfect all the rest of the time... :angry:
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the throttle body thing about giving it some wellie, i know this works on mr2s, assumed golfs were the same, maybe not then! i know on an mr2 a way to test if the throttle body is working normally, take it up to about 4500 revs, in between about 3000 and 4500 there should be a slight turbo like effect.
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In several other threads, people talk of the ECU relay being £10-£12... at my dealers it's £28 + Vat!!!!!
Anyone know how I can get one cheaper? I've tried my local scrap dealers... no joy...
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what about these guys:
http://www.vwspares.co.uk/g3electrical.php
they dont list it but you could phone on monday to see if they have it. Seem cheap too.
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I'll give them a go... cheers
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Well i decided not to pull the throttle body off but got some carb/injector cleaner that you just spray in, cleaned the oil and gunk from around it and it seemed a lot better, cleaned all the crap off the throttle body itself.
Although when you put your foot down it left a gap before it picked up, so i decided to repalace the manifold gasket as we had it off before as one of the nuts has snapped. New gasket and everything sounds better, quicker response now as well, which is nice.
Got one more thing to replace which is the oil breather pipe leading up to the throttle body as it has a small hole in it.
Apart from that the engine is fine, and apart from the small air intake, (the plastic cone at the front) makes a farting noise when you blip the throttle, which is just funny. :grin:
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what about these guys:
http://www.vwspares.co.uk/g3electrical.php
they dont list it but you could phone on monday to see if they have it. Seem cheap too.
I phoned them... what nice people... he told me I'd been misinformed... it is cheaper than I'd been led to believe... got one from the dealers for £11 and fitted it... he said I should get it at the dealers to save me the mark up they'd charge me... nice people, I'll use them in future... cheers Evil'
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no problem mate :cool: I like them a lot and they seem to know their stuff.
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Right... I've fitted the ECU relay and it hasn't cut out for about a week... too early to say, but promising none the less...