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205 is alive

Well, I bought it. An unmodded 1.9 (apart from a K&N element, don't panic!). £395. 101K allegedly.

The paint on the tailgate is as bad as it looked in the pics (see the "Bonded glass" thread. No chance of using rubbing compound as it's metallic. Or was when it came out of the factory. Doh.

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I think I might get a compressor in the fullness of time, as they are dead useful, and I'm sure I could learn to spray-paint to an acceptable standard.

After a drive tonight, I have the following comments for your perusal / amusement.

It's fun. I might even keep it after the Golf is back on the road. I can use one whenever the other is on axle stands having some painful job done at a really slow pace. ;)

It needs gas and a rev to start from cold. Unlike any fuel-injected car I've ever seen, the cold idle appears to be near enough the same as the warm (800 vs 750). Perhaps because of this, it's hard to drive it slowly without kangerooing like a ****.

I suspect this is partly me getting used to the car, and partly the car being out of tune. The throttle is certainly sensitive.

The idle is a little lumpy and "hunty" whether cold or warm.

The archives reveal a lot of threads about idling, mostly involving gunked breather hoses, thottles, and airflow meters. What annoys me is posts saying that they all stall and idle badly, as if they are supposed to. My arse they are. Also things like raising idle speed to 1100, that seems way high to me and is surely just a bodge.

Last few mm of the clutch travel are a little stiff, just making sure I push hard on the pedal, don't get lazy with it.

Speedo needle is flicking like crazy - possibly the cable.

Oil temperature gauge barely moves. Coolant temperature is okay. Probably. Who designed these gauges? An assymetric scale with an arbitrary number of divisions. I really can't read them unless they are at one end or the other.

Time to get a Haynes, and perhaps a workshop manual on CD from ebay. In the meantime, any comments appreciated.

Reply to
Antony Gelberg
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Sweet :-)

Sounds like a plan!

Older Pug, yea that sounds about right.

It doesn't really matter that they idle lumpy does it?

An older Pug, yea that sounds about right :-)

An older Pug, yea that sounds about right :-D

Have fun! Try not to throw it into a hedge...

Reply to
DanTXD

Lumpy I can live with. Stalling, I can't. Ah yes, I forgot to say. It stalls on the odd occasion when pulling up to lights etc. Even in neutral. It's rare, but annoying. I haven't yet determined whether it happens more with lots of electrics on.

It's okay, there are no hedges in London and one never gets to do more than 30mph (more like 10mph most of the time).

Reply to
Antony Gelberg

First thing to do would be have it properly serviced by someone who knows what they are doing..............stalling may well be something silly like leads breaking down, or blocked fuel filter!

k
Reply to
Ken

Oooh, nice.

Looks like a bit of a bargain.

Reply to
SteveH

I think the engine is the same as was in my first 405. I've got that stalling thing too: it was due the axe of the butterfly in the carburetor which grinded through the housing.

Fuel seeped through on idle (you could smell it) and the false air drawn in made the idle rough and caused the engine to stall when the gas pedal was slightly pressed. Easily checked but the repair was a new carb. Which develloped teh same sickness after only 20.000 km.

Great engine though, thristy but fast. Mucho better that the EFI on a later

405GR.

Best of luck with your 205. Watch the back : it tends to come around when you lift off in a corner. :-)

Tom De Moor

Reply to
Tom De Moor

205 GTI - carburettor?

cheers, clive

Reply to
Clive George

No... but they're renowned for suffering with all sorts of idling problems etc.

-- JackH

Reply to
JackH

In news:441cbf55$0$23291$ snipped-for-privacy@news.zen.co.uk, Antony Gelberg wrote something quite bizarre, possibly in an effort to confuddle the world. It went like so;

Most 205 GTi's always tickover between 750-800. All my ones did.

Yup, I used to replace the throttle return spring with a heavier one, made it a lot easier to avoid the shunting they do in town.

Never known one that wasn't.

Idle speed is where it should be, 205 GTis never were refined.

Beware of snapping the clutch pivot in the gearbox. It's a bastard to do, and it's how I got membership of the Order of Mechanical Fuckwittedness.

All do that, probably is just the cable, although it's quite probably the cable routing rather than a sticky cable.

Yup, they all do that. Hard day thrashing the pants off it and you may get it to 1/3 of the way up.

Top cars. Don't lower it.

Reply to
Pete M

No carbs here. Unless it was modded, but that would be unlikely. A more likely scenario would be to replace the EFI with a Max Power sticker.

What's lift off? ;)

Reply to
Antony Gelberg

Even at cold?

I was a bit smoother driving it today, but the cold starting needs fixing. Took 10-20 times with lots of gas.

That's what I thought. There was one being sold on ebay. Seller was making out that his 1500rpm idle is a good thing.

I'm a member already. I've been working on the brake pipes on my Golf for weeks, although I can only work on it at weekends, and it's been far too cold recently. Nearly done now. Two more rusted unions to drill out.

I'll take a look.

Yes, it's growing on me, and No Wucking Fay. This is the only one left in the country with door locks (allegedly).

Reply to
Antony Gelberg

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