Carb icing? Stalling engine on Scirocco

[wookiee_rob]

I have recntly bought a well looked after old scirocco that keeps on stalling in cold weather. It starts up ok on automatic choke, but can be quite lumpy to begin with, and after running it for a few minutes on the road it will drive fine, but then stall often when I come to a stand still.

After running the car warm for about 10 minutes its then perfectly fine and runs well, not stalling at all. I was thinking that this problem is likely to be caused by carb icing in cold weather conditions. I was told its quite common for the carb heater to go in the original carb (mines still got its original Piersburg one), but that if it is that then its hard to find replacement heaters and that alot of people just replace the whole carb with a Webber one or similar.

Does anyone have any other ideas as to what it might be and any ways that I can fix it?

The guy I bought it off only used it occasionally and kept it in his garage so I guess he didnt have much of a problem with it.

Thanks alot,

Rob

[midiwife]

Hi Rob,

I've got the same problem on my mk2 Golf Driver. I've checked a load of forums for the exact problem and it does sound like the Pierburg syndrome, i.e., high revs, wobbling kicking in when driving at speed, and stalling especially at speed or when changing down a gear. Sometimes restarting hardly seems likely then all of a sudden the engine kicks in and roars and away we go again! All intermittent of course but really scarey when you're overtaking on the motorway and have to put on the hazards and coast into the hard shoulder. I drove back down from scotland overnight last time so it was quiet and I could bump start again as I stalled! I was going to ditch my car but I'm now looking for a used Weber 32/34 DTML carb to fit and see if that sorts it out. I'm no expert but I want to have a go anyway.

Good luck.

Karina T.

[Niall76]

I had a problem with carb icing on my mk2 Golf.

I'd get up for work and all seems fine, then once I hit the M-way (about 5 mins after starting) it would lose all power. I'd have to pull over and sit waiting on it to melt. Then it would be fine (usually).

I had a look at the thing after a couple of weeks of this getting no better. Turned out it was the flap in the air intake which directs heat to the carb. The flap has a spring on it to activate/deactivate and it had popped off (I have no idea how?). Because of this the simple mechanical turn of events was all happening corrrectly but the all important flap wasn't moving. Hence no heat and carb icing.

Anyhow, the air intake unit is very easy to pull apart and it was pretty straight forward to put the spring end back where it should be (you'll see what I mean if you do this). Once I had done that I moved it to make sure it wasn't popping off and bingo!

No more carb icing. Brilliant!

I then tried to thrash the car to death as I knew I was goetting rid of it and the bugger wouldn't die. Good old mk2

[midiwife]

Hi Niall,

Not sure that that's my problem because mine will stop then start again and then stall again etc etc. It often immediately restarts so there's no wait for any icing to melt. It's also worse in wet or especially damp weather.

But... I've just looked under the bonnet again and found that I think there's something missing underneath the manifold. I've taken a picture and posted on my flickr site linked below. I'm wondering if this is where the hose from the exhaust is supposed to be connected. If you have a minute, maybe you could take a look and let me know?

www.flickr.com/photos/midiwife/465267388/

I hope I'm not contravening any guidelines by posting this link.

Kind regards,

Karina T.

[Niall76]

Yep - there's hose missing.

You'll get a new univeral one from your local car shop or halfords for a few quid. Then use a jubilee clip either end to keep it there. The flexi hose I'm talking about is a metal corrugated type. One ond goes from the heat sheild on the manifold to the air intake (where the flap is incidently).

On the stop start thing - I had a similar problem again which turned out to be the HT leads were well and truly worn out - could be worth a look.

[midiwife]

Hi again Niall,

Thanks for that. I'll pick one up tomorrow!

Kind regards,

Karina T.