I bought a new Mk2 Golf off ebay last week for 200. I'm well pleased with it generally (good body) but it has issues, as you'd expect for 200! I've sorted a few things, but the choke it giving me grief. My other golf which I've now retired due to the body being shot, I've tinkered with in the past and ended up ripping off the waxstat and auto choke. It's needs coaxing into life on a cold morning and driving gently before it's warmed up but I could live with that. With this new though, I'd like to do the right thing and get it working as it should. Anyway, enough rambling - on with the problem. The auto choke doesn't work. I tested the voltage to it and found nothing, so took out the temperature sensor and tested it in the kitchen. The only way I could get it passing current was putting it in the freezer for half an hour, and then within a few minutes of being out of the freezer, it was an open switch. I replaced it and now have 12v going to the autochoke, but still no sign of life. I have a good earth from the carb, so what could be wrong? I've checked it with voltage while off the carb (and earthed) and it doesn't get warm. I was expecting the fine spring to get hot, but nothing happens. Can they be replaced? I've looked for a replacement part but can't seem to find anything. VAGCAT gives possibly part numbers of 027129191K, 027129191H and 030129191F but no useful results. I expect I also have a blocked coolant 'o' ring, but I'd like to get the electrical side sorted first. Cheers for any help! Graham
Morning Graham, Have you measured resistance from the heater coil's feed wire to the metal casing (i.e. the resistance of the coil)? From memory, that should give about 12-14 Ohms On mine, the crimped connection between the feed wire and the heater coil had gone very high resistance. Repairable, but very fiddly to do so. I may well have a working one in the shed, not sure. I can check a few later if you like.
I did measure it out of curiosity and seem to remember that 3 digits came up, but I can't remember what they were or what setting my meter was set to! Probably not much help really! I'll have a look at lunch time.
Right, been out in the car park with my meter and measured the resistance between the red plug and the choke casing - came in at around 150 MOhms. Also measured the resistance between the casing and the -ve battery terminal and that was around 12.5 KOhms. Between the carb itself and the -ve terminal was nothing (got the continuity beep from my meter). So, seems like the connection between the casing and the carb could be better, but also that the heater spring/coil is knackered?
One more question.... Are the red and grey thermoswitches identical in operation just different colours? I replaced my faulty grey one with the red one from my other golf (as its grey one didn't work either). It's passing voltage which is all I wanted for now, but wondered if I should get a proper grey replacement. When I tested it (the red one) is switched at "hand hot" temperature i.e. on the edge of being too hot when sticking your finger in it.
Thermoswitches are different temperature ratings. Red for intake mani heater is conducting below about 55C, and non-conducting above. Grey one for autochoke heater is conducting below about 35C and non-conducting above. Using a red one instead of a grey one is fine, the autochoke heater will just be on unnecessarily for a couple of minutes extra (well it will once it's working!). It sounds like you have the second 'standard' problem with the autochoke, as well as the one I mentioned before lunch. On the carb in question, is there a black plastic part between the main body of the carb, and the housing which contains this heater coil? On early carbs this chunk was metal, which was good from an earthing point of view, but bad from the point of view of heatsoak into the carb body from the autochoke water-heated bits. On later carbs the plastic bit means that earthing the autochoke heater isn't automatically accomplished by bolting all the metal bits together. Instead there's a flimsy metal ring that is supposed to connect things through one of the mounting screws. This ring breaks easily, disconnecting the autochoke from ground/earth. I'm going to post the worst photo in the world of this broken ring, you can just about make out the part that sits under a screw-head broken away from a tab off the main ring part that touches the metal housing: I'll aim to get a better photo later whilst attempting to find a working heater part for you. I think that this earthing ring has been broken on just about every 2e2 I've touched. I've bodged mine with a separate earth lead soldered to the tab part IIRC.
Aha, just found a vastly better photo of the earthing ring (broken as usual, where the green arrow is pointing):
Yes, there is a black plastic "holder" that the autochoke screws on to. When I had it apart I did see the ring and it was definitely flat, i.e. no metal bits at right angles to it as shown in your second photo. Unless the bit that is in contact with the screw is separate from the ring anyway? Either way, I'll check when home. Many thanks!
No luck on the first carb I found. Earth ring bust in same place as usual; heater element connection high-resistance. Also had a dead waxstat, and part-throttle channel heater. Wondered why it was so cheap...lol I might have a go at re-making the heater element wire to the feed wire connection if I'm feeling keen in the next few days. Wish I could remember exactly how I did it on mine about 5 or 6 years ago...
Last night I took my choke to bits for a proper look and found that the heater wire/spring had broken off at the end and that the earth ring had broken in the same place you said. I tried soldering the spring back but my iron didn't seem to have enought grunt so I ended up tieing it up around the remains of the wire that was still attached. I then reassembled with the white spring ring holder bits. The earth ring I broke trying to clean it, it is so fragile! I'm not surprised they break at the same point all the time. It was still usable though so I wrapped some wire around the screw in the plastic part on the carb and tucked it under the earth ring and then screwed it back on. Checked the resistances and all was good. Turned on the car - choke still didn't move. Took it off again and realised I'd put the coil on back to front so was trying to close the choke flap when it expanded! Doh! Tried to pull the coil out to flip it while leaning over the engine bay and dropped one of the white plastic holder bits into the engine bay! Argh! That'll teach me to do these things late in the dark! Going to search for it tonight when I get back home after work. Is it just me that these things happen to?!
Minor miracle occured yesterday and I found the white plastic bit that I'd dropped! So, managed to get it all back together again. Here's a photo of my broken earth ring. It's broken in the same place, the remnant is shown still being held by the screw. The heater spring inside the choke had broken at the end and needed fixing to the point shown by the red arrow. I tried soldering it, but couldn't so tied it on with a small pliers. Not ideal and I don't know how long it will last...we'll see. Here's the mount on the carb and the screw that the earth ring attaches (or should be attached!) to indicated by the green arrow. I wrapped some twisted multi-strand wire around this screw before tightening down and made sure it was clamped by the earth ring when I put the auto choke back on. Pleased to report that I switched it on last night and could see the flap opening! Hope my fix helps someone with a choke in similar condition, and thanks Pete for the pointers. Graham
Nice going mate. I haven't yet given up on finding you an intact heated bit, remind me next week by PM. Gotta concentrate on sorting out my suspension first.
Choke's buggered again. Something's seized up inside so the choke flap won't move without quite a lot of pressure. It's stuck open now. Taking it off again tonight....
Graham; I checked through the 2e2 graveyard in my shed, and came up with nothing better than the non-working one I found at the start of this thread. The thing which makes me reluctant to try to fix this one is that the pipe stubs where the coolant hoses attach are in bad condition. We could consider separately replacing that bit if I can get the heater part working though? Sure I've got a plastic version of the water housing itself somewhere, still in a packet, can't remember if the O-rings were with it though. Nag me by PM, I may be able to find some time this weekend.
I took it off the carb a couple of days ago and the coil 'twanged' free. I put it back on and fingers crossed, all seems good. Not sure what happened but for the moment it's behaving itself. Interesting you mention the stubs are in a bad way; on mine one of the pipes has a hole in it about half way. Doesn't seem to cause a problem as the hose covers it, but it's a bit odd to degrade in this way. The earth ring fell apart when I took the choke off as well, so there's only half of it left on there now! I've seen a plastic replacement housing on ebay (item 220984787446). Is this the kind of thing you have? It doesn't look big enough to me to be a direct replacement for the housing.
Yep, I bought one the same as that a couple of years back, but never used it. Having dug mine out, it didn't come with o-rings which seal the circumference, or the head of the bolt which goes through the middle. The hose stubs also look very narrow compared to the metal version, though I haven't measured them yet. Don't think it's much use TBH. The good news (for a few months at least) is that the warmer weather means the autochoke heating systems have less work to do, so are less critical if faulty.
bin it and put a weber on it. pierburg 2e2's are nothing but over-engineered unreliable pieces of scrap. weber is much more basic but much better, mine feels a bit more pokey on full throttle also. i have a weber on my mk2 1.6 if you want it, will be removing it after its last drive to the garage sometime this week or next week before engine is removed in favor of ABF. i can tell you that i start it up once every week or so at the mo and i only need to use a tiny bit of choke and no throttle and it fires first time every time and runs like a dream. it has a manual choke btw...
