[T3] Difficulty Starting & White Wire

[Jim Adney]

On 30 Sep 2012 at 6:04, miah wrote:

> Difficulty Starting 71 Squareback (Stock 1600 FI) 

> When it´s cold I must keep the ignition engaged for an extended amount
> of time in order to start.

The most common such cause would be needing to bleed air out of the 
fuel ring. You can check for this by parking the car normally for the 
night, but then go out, after it has had a few hours to completely 
cool down. Do whatever is necessary to get it started, let it run for 
just long enough to run smoothly (less than a minute) then shut it 
off.

If it starts easily the next morning, that was probably the problem.

Another way to test for this would be to use a jumper wire to short 
between the 2 red wires on the fuel pump relay to make the pump run 
BEFORE you try to start the car. Let it run for a minute, or until 
you stop hearing bubbles returning to the gas tank. Once the bubbles 
stop, if it starts right away, that's the cause.

You definitely want to fix this quickly, because running the starter 
for extended times will wear out the irreplacable '71 ignition 
switch.

If this was the problem, I can sell you a switch with wires which you 
can install so you can run the pump easily before you try to start 
the car. I have these on each of my Type 3s.

> It was fine until I began a simple tune up that led into replacing
> quite a bit as well as re-caped old wires. This last two weeks I´ve
> been all over this car, I retraced my steps (for a 3rd time) in order
> to track down what I missed or caused that´s making the ignition so
> difficult. 

The cause above would not normally be associated with anything missed 
or bumped, but you might have moved a hose and cracked it slightly 
(you can look for gas leaks while the engine is running) which might 
allow air in as the engine cools down.

I generally caution people against just replacing things with newer 
things. There needs to be a better reason to replace them, since 
newer is not always better. There are LOTS of aftermarket parts out 
there that are inferior. I recommend that you only buy Bosch ignition 
parts, and even those are not always as good as the older Bosch 
parts. 

> My gut tells me: The Points (Gapped at .016in) I feel like this is a
> stupid question* at what point of rotation on the distributor do I set
> the points... just any High Point during the revolution? I´m getting
> another set of points today because my new set now have a burnt pit on
> them... this time I will gently clean off the points before hand. 

Any high spot is fine. It's normal for a pit to form, but it seems 
odd that one might form so quickly. I wonder if there's something 
wrong with the way you've got the ignition wired. Does the car have 
normal power once it's running?

> The only other questionable thing I did was:   I found a random White
> Wire hanging from under the right side of the intake near the fire
> wall... for some reason I decided that it was a ground wire... so I
> connected it to a ground tab.   To this day I have no idea what the
> wire was, Any Ideas? 

Look on the white insulation, about 1/2" back from the end, for a 
black number stamped on there. If you can find a number, we can tell 
you which wire it is.

It SOUNDS like it might be the wire that should go to the cold start 
valve temp switch. If so, it should NOT be grounded. Try insulating 
it from ground. Does that make starting any easier? (Don't just test 
it once; try it insulated for a few days.)

-- 
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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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