Mk1 Golf Cab turns over but will not start

[jamiesgolf]

Hi, I am currently midway through restoring a mk1 golf cabriolet but I have a problem. when i got the car it ran but needed retiming (when the engine was turned off it would carry on running and then judder to a stop). my friend then took out the carb and cleaned it out, and put it back in. I imagine we probably took off the distributor and ht leads as well. Basically now, the engine turns over but will not start, after a few cranks of the engine it makes a small bang, and smoke comes out the top of the carb. Any ideas what might be wrong?

any help is much appreciated

[paul.t123]

He's not timed it up right mate.  Is it a 1800cc?  I can't remember if them heads and valves are non-intrusive, I timed a 1600 up wrong once and it foooked it.  Your problems lay with the timing and distributor not the carb.

[jamiesgolf]

hi mate thanks for your reply, yeah it's a 1.8, when you say you timed it i presume you mean the ignition timing? sorry if this sounds stupid but i guess cam timing can't out sync unless the cam belt snaps or someone changes it? i've looked briefly at how to go about ignition timing it, most things i've looked at say to use a timing light, but doesn't it need to be running to use a timing light?

how did you retime yours properly after you did it wrong?

thanks again

[Dammizi]

dont exactly remember how I timed mine, but sure there was a mark on the flywheel that u had to have TDC to set up the distributor timing somehow 

[Dammizi]

ok found it, this is what I used to set up mine:

http://techtonicstuning.com/main/index.php?main_page=page&id=16&chapter=5

should fire up once u set it up as it states in the manual. then once it's running I just turned the distributor slightly to the left and right till I felt it was running best and tightened down the clamp to the distributor...

hope this helps