I'm posting this for a friend... he has a 1986 (maybe 87?) 240 w/ 5 speed tranny and a broken odo. At any rate... he bought the car on sunday and it was starting fine. He drove it 1.5 hours home without any problems. Monday, its damp and rainy its hard to start but starts successfully and has no problems the rest of the day. Today, again rainy, butcar won't start at all. He roll starts it and it stays running for a few moments then quits. We aren't able to get the car started again. We try to push it up a hill to reattempt a roll start but we were unsuccessful (hill too steep, car too heavy, pavement too wet to get a good grip). At any rate, I'm just wondering if these cars have any quirks we should know about. I know that we should check spark, fuel, etc., etc., but again I'm not familar with the car yet. My friend and I are VW guys... what kind of fuel system does this carhave, CIS? I know earlier vw's and mercedes had this kind of system.

I don't have much time at the moment to search through old threads since I'm at work. I was just hoping someone could shoot me some advice.

 

Could be moisture getting into the distributor. Check for cracks. Also check spark plug wires. If they haven't been replaced there is a good likelihood that that is part of the problem.

 

yeah I had the same thought about the dist. VW's are notorious for ignition coil housing cracks, dist. cracks, etc.

 

Hey Gang i am the friend that Jerry is talking about.

I was able to start the car with a key this morning and instead of keeping the idle going by revving a little bit and warming the car up in the driveway i decided to warm it up on my way to work.

I made it to the top of the street , on a hill and i stopped for the stop sign and the engine died, so i coasted backwards into a spot and was able to start going down the hill toward my house in the proper direction. On my way down i tried roll starting it, but the engine only acted as a brake and didn't kick over.

Its in front of my house on the street right now, so i am going to try and replace the plugs and wires when i get home from work. Do you Suggest Bosch Coppers for the spark plug? its what i used in my old Golf so i figure they would be good.

Ideas?

 

an update: today we replaced the dist. cap, plug wires and plugs... there is fuel on the sparkplug so it appears to be getting fuel. I touched the plug to the block and couldn't see a spark but the engine has a broken motor mount so its bouncing around a lot so it may or may not be getting spark. any input would be helpful...

 

Don't know if it's a turbo (CI) or LH-2.2. Three vital sensors on the LH are the air mass meter, the O2 sensor, and the engine temperature sensor. If you think the AMM is bad, disconnect it (with the engine off). If the engine starts and runs the AMM is likely bad. That's the 'limp home' mode and hard acceleration will kill the engine. Also, the fuel pump relay should be checked, I would just replace it if it's over 10 years old. Also check the 25-A fuse holder on the left fender behind the battery. They tend to get corroded. That is fed by the thin red wire from the + battery terminal.

Any idiot lights?

Let us know how it goes.

 

Its a non-turbo... sorry we didn't make that clear... no idiot lights that I know of...

thanks goose! we'll see what we come up with... we much appreciate the pointers.