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On 9 Nov 2002, at 23:22, Mark Healey wrote: > My car ran perfectly wednesday. Today I went to start it and it would > only start if I had it floored and would run poorly until I let up and > it stopped. This sounds like a moisture problem. As Dave said, I'd suspect water in the gas tank if you drove it on wet pavement. In that case, check your overflow hose for cracks, as they will admit a lot of water which you may not even be aware of. If the car was not driven in the wet, then I's suspect wet ignition parts. Take a dry cloth or paper towel and simply dry off the dist cap and rotor, inside and out. Be careful of the spring loaded carbon brush inside the dist cap as you can break it off if you are careless with it. Dry off the nose of the coil. Inspect all these parts for spark tracks. I would also dry off the spark plug wires and connectors. If this doesn't seem to help, try looking at the engine in the dark while someone else is keeping it running. If it is really dark you may be able to see where your problem is. Note also that VW introduced some special silicone rubber covers for the SP connectors in around '70. These are EXCELLENT for preventing moisture problems at the SP insulators. If you don't have these covers they can still be purchased from your dealer. They are somewhat expensive, but worth it. They will also last forever if not abused. If your engine no longer has these, reach in and dry off each SP insulator, too. If you have opened up your SP gap above .028", or if the SPs are old and have rounded edges on the electrodes, they will require higher voltage to drive a spark across them. This means that everything else has to go to higher voltage, too, so there is an increased likelyhood that the spark will find an alternate path to ground, rather than fire across the plug. This will also give you more trouble in wet weather. - ******************************* Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, Wisconsin, USA ******************************* ------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <type3-off@vwtype3.org> For more help, see http://vwtype3.org/list/