[urq] hesitation, bucking on takeoff - not resolved yet!

[Doyt W. Echelberger]

At 04:24 PM 10/19/2005, you wrote:
>Subject: Re: [urq] hesitation, bucking on takeoff - not resolved yet!
>I thought maybe someone on the regular quattro list might have dome ideas 
>on this.
 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hello Ben...............

Many years ago I spent a month trying to get my 86 4kq to settle down and 
stop bucking.  I tried_everything _that seemed reasonable, like you did.

Nothing worked.

Then I decided to try some unreasonable things, TO SEE IF THEY MADE THE 
CONDITION WORSE.

I figured that IF IT AFFECTED THE BUCKING  it was INVOLVED in the bucking 
somehow.

OK, long story shortened:

On a cold engine, I took out all the sparkers and carefully measure and 
record the gaps. (I already knew how it ran with those measured gaps.) They 
were about 0.028 inches.

Then, I re-gapped each plug to 0.045 inches.  Yes, you read it right,  45 
thousanths.

I put the plugs back in and drove the car and decided if the bucking was 
any DIFFERENT (better, worse, didn't matter. I figured if changing the gap 
affected the bucking in any way at all, I could affect the bucking by 
making OTHER changes in the ignition system.

OK, if the bucking is the same, I give up. Listen to somebody else.

But if the bucking is DIFFERENT, you could try what I did next.......I 
EXPERIMENTED with the position of the distributor.

I started out by making sure that the timing was exactly on factory 
specifications. And since it bucked like crazy at that setting, I figured 
it might need to run at some other setting, because the engine had aged 
considerably in twelve years. And nobody was going to tell me what the 
correct settings were for the condition it was in at that moment. I had to 
experiment.

FIRST, I marked the position of the dizzy, using a metal scribe to inflict 
scratches on both the dizzy and the engine block where it mounted.....a 
place that can't move. You could use WhiteOut if you clean up the surfaces 
with alcohol and ether first.

Then, I loosened the fastener on the dizzy and rotated it about the 
thickness of dime in the counterclockwise direction..... Tightened the 
fastener, checked all the wires attached to the dizzy, and drove it around 
town.

What happened next is a little fuzzy because it was about 5 years ago.  I 
can't verify that the first clockwise rotation made it stop bucking, or if 
it took some more rotation beyond the thickness of a dime.  I might have 
even brought it back to the original setting and rotated it the thickness 
of a dime in the OTHER direction, maybe once, maybe twice. The 
experimenting took the best part of an afternoon.

But experimenting with the position of the dizzy WORKED. The bucking went 
away at one of the experimental settings.

And then I regapped the plugs at about 0.030 inches just to see if the gap 
made any difference. It didn't. I and drove it that way for a year. At the 
new dizzy position, the wide plug gap didn't seem to affect how it ran.

END OF STORY: Some maniac rear-ended my car at about 50 mph a few years 
later and DESTROYED it, but it was great until then. And your URQ might not 
be that different.

Doyt Echelberger
Alive and well in northern Ohio,
driving into my old age in a 87 5ktq and a nearly new Benz E 320