1983 Golf MK1 1.8 DX GTI - Bosch Distributor Springs...

Had a weep from the Bosch dizzy on the 205... easy fix as it just needed an new external oil seal / 'O' ring, similar set up I believe to that on 16v's?

Anyhow, as a consequence of it, it got me looking into that cars distributor a bit more and turned up a few potentially relevant pieces of info. that could apply to any Bosch item.

I hadn't heard of them, but seem to be a well enough known outfit - H+H Ignition Solutions - https://www.h-h-ignitionsolutions.co.uk/#

Nothing to do with me, nor have I had any contact with or used them.

A couple of the other places you see advertising distributor services haven't impressed, hopefully this one's maybe different... be good to hear of any experiences.

There's one guy on the 205GTiDrivers forum that I'd take what he says as worthwhile listening to.

He sent in his dizzy for a refurb., marking it in places so he'd be able to understand what was being done / replaced.

You've probably seen the little oval windows with a tinplate cap pressed into them on the side of Bosch dizzies?

They were accessing the spings via that rather than taking the drive cog from the shaft to remove the inards.

If you take the vac. canister off as well, it'll provide an similar sized / additional slot but doesn't seem essential.

He also believed it was solely the springs that were being replaced and possibly the arms to which they attach were being bent back to compensate for years of wear / slack.

On my 205's dizzy you can quite easily get to the springs doing this, but it's not just so accessible on the 8v MK1/2's, though still very doable I'd imagine with the right tools / knowledge / experience.

Any references I read were from people wanting dodgy dizzies repaired, not modified as such, and most seemed impressed with the results (if not cheap) so presumably the service is worth a look.

Again without knowing, I'm going to guess as a business they'll have the means to calibrate springs / test and set the dizzies back to original spec, which is always going to be what knobbles a DIY fix.

You can maybe see one of the springs lurking in the back of the second image, rotating the shaft brings the other one into view.

So it's possible then that GTiE could've changed out springs much more easily / cheaply than first thought.

Helps to know... but equally you still would need the proper kit so you can check meaning we're no further on in reality!

 

On the back of someone elses post elsewhere and as a bit of an add on to this one, for future reference...

The Hall sensor set up pictured below is from a 1992 MK2 dizzy fitted to a PB Digifant 1.8 8v (Bosch 0 237 520 044 / VW 037 905 205 K).

It's different to the majority (if not all) of the earlier dizzies talked about in this thread for a number of reasons, eg. no vacuum cannister, Hall sensor differences etc. etc., however the electrical connection itself does look to be very similar, so even there are slight variations maybe the principle is applicable over a wide range of Bosch dizzies if you ever have to repair the wiring.

Sort of self explainatory in the images, other than to say you'd need the part shown out of the dizzy body to do this and the only thing holding it all together is that highlighted slide in piece. Once you overcome getting the square raised part out of its notch everything (carefully) slides out.

Did notice there was a light coating of grease around the potted wires in there, don't think it was just grime through use but intentional, maybe acts as additional waterproofing and worth refreshing when you reassemble things?

 

As always, great information that will help someone else one day

 

Making the post before last spurred me on the look again for a spare dizzie for the MK2.

The original'd got wrecked while trying to take it out of the block, way back when I began renovating the car 3 or so years ago.

It'd welded itself in place because of the aluminiums reaction to the surrounding iron, plus the presumably original green O ring'd morphed into a dense, solid mass gluing it all together even further.

Very big hammer sorted things in the end, thankfully had taken the precaution of tracking down a replacement before tackling the now deceased one, just as well.

That's the Hall sensor from it pictured above, all that could be salvaged.

Turns out it being a very late MK2 meant it'd an odd dizzie - 0237 520 044 / 037 9055 205K that only ran from March '91 to the end of production over a limited engine number range.

Upshot is they're hard to find let alone at a sensible price.

Took a punt on this 'thing', didn't know it was exactly the one I was after because of the dirt and grime, but was advertised as being from a late model 8v and got lucky.

Cheap at £20 quid inc. post (for very obvious reasons!)

 

These later non-vac. canister dizzies are quite different to the ones pictured at the start of the thread and in more ways than you'd maybe think at first glance.

For taking apart purposes, the main one'd be that you can't remove the trigger wheel on it's own, or even at all for that matter, as it's press fitted to the main shaft making them combine to be a single unit.

Means the only way into the internals is to take off the gear cog enabling you to slide it all out from the top.

As said before, I've had no success trying to hammer out the securing pin, drilling it through enough so that it's hollow works best, seems to relieve it's ability to hold and allows you to then easily punch it out at that stage.

I'm going to guess this dizzie has been sitting exposed with no cap, but it did have the inner grey plastic cover in place which seems to have saved the internals.

Amongst other work, replaced the felt wick (but note that it's to different measurements than the vac. canister type).

Would advise you pre-soak it in oil before fitting, then drip feed yet more into the opening below the 'O' ring until it becomes saturated, that can take a bit of time so suggests you'd likely be running it very dry at first start up if you didn't help it along like this 'till things began to eventually circulate with the engine running.

Be worth saying that if you've a dizzie that's been sitting unused for a long time, even it's in the car, it might be an idea thoroughly re-soaking the wick before you use it again.

Any I've found up to now have all been bone dry and easily crumbled, it's bound to cause some harm if the dizzie is run that dry, before it gets a chance to self lubricate.

The hall sensor on this one matches the cars original dizzie, being the type that has the plug on one side and the sensor on the opposite side connected by the three wires.

The replacement I got (after the original, but before this spare) was a factory refurbished one and it has the later sensor that's much smaller / all one piece and combined with the plug.

The dizzie body casting is the same on all three, the different Hall sensor arrangements just use a varying combination of the four securing holes. You could easily retro-fit the later sensor easily enough (seems that they're still available too).

Final test was to run it on the car and glad to say works perfectly.

These are high quality items that seem to be able to take a lot of neglect / can be returned to working order with some TLC... if you're tempted to change yours for one of the latter day copies I'd recommend you have a stab at sorting the original first, likely work out cheaper and you'd end up with a superior item into the bargain.

The 167 stamp denotes July 1991 manufacture which fits in with the short production span.

 

This is the factory refurbed dizzie got to replace the destroyed original (which there was no reason to doubt was original to the car).

When it went in I hadn't taken the same interest in dizzies so didn't pay much heed to certain things that I'd now pick up on.

The main casting is 100% the same, part number 1235103 is confirmed on all three.

The factory re-manufacturing date must be May 1998, which may explain why they used the later type of Hall sensor.

As you might be able to see, the casting has 4x fixing points on its inside, the early sensor (the one with the wires) uses three of these and the newer compact version, just the two.

The new version of the sensor's still available new from Bosch, 1 237 031 296.

Autodoc have them for £59 (on a discount day), so as these late dizzies have basically been parred back to just the trigger wheel and a hall sensor you should in theory be able to renew your dizzie using genuine parts for not very much.

The only fly in the ointment is the number on the refurb'd dizzies trigger wheel, it states 145 whereas the original and subsequent spare are 069.

I've measured them both, each wheels circumference / diameter and the slots etc. etc., and can't find any differences between them, but then my vernier isn't an expensive one so there's always the possibility of miniscule differences I can't pick up on, who knows?

I was hoping that sticker might help, but it basically translates as 'Opening obliges you to purchase, no returns or exchanges if the seal is damaged'.