hi all... as usual, i have made this as long as humanly possible...
a few weeks ago, i posted that i had a problem with poor low power and poor mileage. it popped alot off throttle, and had alot of pressure from the exhaust at idle...all signs of poor timing. (i figured it could have something to do with he knock sensors.) this past weekend, i got a chance to play with my car for a little bit, but when i plugged it onto the diagnostic computer, i didnt get any fault codes. i did, however, try to rest my ignition timing, but advancing the distributor all the way couldnt even bring the ignition timing back to 6 degrees. on tuesday, i went out to my car to start troubleshooting. since i had a few suggestions to check the cam timing, i checked that first. i lined the cam up to TDC, and then checked the vibration dampner. just as i suspected, everything was lined up. (i recently changed my belt and set the ignition timing, and everything was perfect for a while after i did that.) for some reason, i then looked at the flywheel, and noticed that it wasnt lined up to TDC. after playing the stick-in-the-cylinder game, i determined that the flywheel indicated true TDC. (and hence, the cam and pulley were actually retarded) i reset the cam to true TDC, kept the flywheel at TDC, and set my distributor back to the "normal" position. i then doublechecked the ignition timing with a gun, and everything was back to normal, except my VD (heheheh) was back about 10 degrees. last night i noticed similar "bad timing" problems and i went out today to check my cam timing again. i again lined the cam up to "TDC" and found that the flywheel was again off. rotating the engine back ~10 degrees brought the TDC mark up on the flywheel. essentially, the same exact thing that happened before. now, as far as i knew, this sort of situation was impossible. i was under the impression that the VD and the flywheel were *always* going to be in the same position, since there is really only one way to put the pulley on. but...nevertheless, my VD is now ~20-25 degrees behind true TDC. (and the cam is currently about 10 degrees back) the only way i can see this happening is if the crank sprocket is somehow slipping. as i have never taken one of those off, i dont really know how they are held on. is there one of those woodruff keys? or is there splines like on a driveshaft? or is it just held on with that one 19mm bolt? for the time being i can drive my car, but i dont want to more than i have to, as this apparently has the possibility of trashing my valves. at the same time however, i dont want to blindly start ripping things off my engine. if anyone has ANY thoughts on the matter, please shout em out. im really at a standstill and dont know what the next step is. i could probably swap in the other 2.0 block i have lying around my garage, but i really dont feel like spending an afternoon doing something that i dont need to do. (besides, that block is 200 miles away) TIA, as always, ben randolph 92 16v gti _____________ List Sponsor: http://www.netsville.com To remove yourself from this list, send mail to [email protected] with 'unsubscribe a2_16v' in the body of your message See us on the web at http://www.a2-16v.com Visit the 16V Homepage at http://www.gti16v.org
