The distributor has only one hose on the pot. The hose routing diagram on the hood is not correct. Finally found the correct at the back of the climate control greenbook halfway through this adventure. At the moment it seems to run correctly except for a high idle most likely due to my last efforts.
I have been meaning to summarize about a thousand posts on this saga for some time. This is as good a time as any.
I bought this car from an eighty-six year old gentleman in April 2012 in non-operational condition. It was his wife's car and had resided in his hay barn for 19 years after she died of cancer. I visited the hay barn. For the last year of its hibernation it was in the care of Elroy, an ASE certified Master Oil Change Technician.
He changed all the belts, hoses spark plug wires, distributor cap and rotor, pressure pump and lift pump and had his way with most of the rest of the car. The rotors, calipers and pads had all been changed. He opened the fuel distributor and left it leaking. I found evidence that he had been lots of places. Washers were missing in the intake manifold and two bolts securing the throttle body were too long and bottomed into their holes without sealing the gaskets. Oh, and I found a coolant hose clamp under the left valve cover. He said he changed both the lift and pressure fuel pumps but never got it running.
It would run on starter fluid at this point. The fuel tank was a rusty mess and destroyed the lift pump even before I could get the old gas out of the tank. I pumped it dry twice with the lift pump, or so I thought. Elroy had bent the steel tubes down to the pick-up filter at about a 30-degree angle so there was always a gallon or two of old rusty gas below the filter screen.
New tank, new lift pump, new pressure pump, fuel lines flushed 3 times. Oh, a new gas cap since the car came with a locked one without a key. Fuel distributor commercially rebuilt and then sent back for a second rebuild due to fuel imbalance. Injectors tested and found to be unsalvageable. New in-box Bosch injectors. Rebuilt control pressure regulator more than once. It would hold for a while then fail again. Replaced with a professionally rebuilt one.
The frequency valve would not reliably operate. Sometimes it would vibrate other times it would not. Replaced system relay and ultimately had to swap out the computer. The car came with a VW 4-cylinder computer but I found a correct 2.8L PRV one. Now all that works.
Fuel delivery was still unbalanced but rebuild company out of business so I did it myself with the steel gasket and O ring rebuild kit. That solved the fuel problem.
The spark advance was initially found to be five degrees after TDC and also found the distributor off by one tooth. Because of all the many strange issues found I pulled the entire front end off the engine to verify crank to cam to piston to distributor alignment. I suspect that Elroy had tried to time to the #6 cylinder rather than #1.
The spark at the plugs was questionable. Plugs fired but three different timing lights would not reliably flash for timing check and the engine ran poorly. Replaced ignition pick-up coil inside the distributor, the insulated lead from the distributor and swapped out the ignition module with another used one. Not to miss anything I replaced the coil with a NOS Bosch coil.
Let’s not forget the few days diagnosing and replacing the ignition switch. It was physically broken inside.
Exterior was painted, interior leather, which was everywhere, was cleaned, treated and painted with vinyl paint. Coverlay dash cap installed and after giving up on dying the carpet new was installed.
I'll come back and plug in some pictures to make this a one page summary of 8 years of hobby work. It's been fun and frustrating.