I seem to be making it worse.......

[balamike]

I'm trying my best to sort out my daughter's 16v MK2 GTi and seem to be going backwards. There's so much good stuff in this forum elsewhere, but the stuff that's happening seems to be designed to stop me getting the car stable enough to apply most of it!  I suspect that I've just missed something obvious , but could really do with some advice if that's possible.......

The car started to run rougher and rougher over a couple of months (I know, I should have stepped in earlier, but I was hoping her boyfriend would help out this time  ). I did insist on changing the timing belt, as it was over 5000 miles late (and maybe an entire change out, but we won't mention that here ). This made no difference to the running, and over the next 3000 miles it slowly got harder to start but seemed to run OK when it was warm.
In the end I decided to try to set up the timing, but couldn't get a timing gun to even light up. I tried 2 guns and both work fine on my Rover so I'm thinking that there's a spark problem. The problem was on more than 1 plug, so I tried swapping the coil. this made no difference (I then swapped the coil back) and changed all of the leads, plugs, distributor cap and rotor arm.

At the time, the engine was starting but after a few seconds the revs were dying, or if I pushed the accelerator, the rev's dipped down, and if I timed it right came back up, otherwise just died. I just went back out to try again (a week later), and now I can't even get it to start. There's a smell of petrol and when I get someone else to turn the engine over, I still get no flash out of the timing gun. In fact I was getting a dull background glow in the timing gun before, but am getting nothing now.

So, can anyone shed any light on this for me (excuse the pun!)

thanks

[Agreeable Slick]

Main checks.

Earthing points.
Battery.
Timing (unscrew the two bolts holding the dizzy in the head, just so they are loose, and you can turn it, then get someone to start turning the car over, and when the car starts stop turning the dizzy, if it continues to run ok, then good, but you will need a RR tune to get it running spot on again)

[richandhazel]

I'd go right back to basics and get your static timing correct. Get everything where it should be at TDC and then it should start. Then use your timing strobe, you'll have to use it on #1 on the distributer/lead if the strobe is like mine. You can't use it on the plug/lead itself as the connections are different to your rover.

[balamike]

OK thanks,

I didn't get a chance to try anything today, but I will go over these suggestions tomorrow.
I sort-of thought that the fact that the ignition was just about working before meant that the timing would have been somewhere near, but maybe I was wrong. It's an old timing gun, so I was picking up the 'spark' from the plug 1 output of the distributor for both cars. I'd have expected to see something even if the timing was wrong, shouldn't I? - perhaps at the wrong time, but it should surely be there? That was why I came up with the conclusion I did. Perhaps time to try again though.

[rubjonny]

if it stinks of fuel, try unplugging the 5th injector, then if that does nothing the WUR (side of the head).

It may also have leaking injectors, but don't bother testing them just buy 4 new brass ones from this guy:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MERCEDES-BOSCH-INJECTOR-201-124-126-107-129-123-460-1_W0QQitemZ190018821074

£50 a set delivered and you can't go wrong!  If I were you I'd take the inlet manifold off to do it though, in case the tips of the injectors fall off or the seats crack when you do it, you don't want any bits falling down into the bores!  Worth renewing the injector seats & seals while you're there anyway.

[balamike]

the smell of fuel was because I was revving the engine and none of it was getting burnt, I suspect...........

I've checked the earths, and it seems to be OK, but still no joy.
I never mentioned before, but I had to swap the cam cover gasket - I can't find any missing, but I'm now wondering if there are any wires I may have missed off when I rebuilt it?  - there were a couple that I remember, but can anyone tell me which ones should be there, apart from the 3 pin connector by the throttle?

thanks
Mike