I've had this car as my daily for nearly 3 years now, my third MK2. Bought it with about 50k on the clock two owners from new from a chap in london that had a mk2 golf syncro with a turbo lump in it, he needed some extra cash and the car so the mine. Currently has 66k and I thought it was about time to do a few bits and try make it a bit nicer to drive and nicer to look at. My plan as it stands now is to whack a Weber on it, sort out the suspension and a paint it. It already has poly lower arm bushes and ARB blocks, it's on 40mm Technix springs and shocks at the front with standard springs and Bilstein B4s in the rear (ride was waaay too harsh with full TA Technix set up). I've got a H&R Cup kit in the post should arrive soon!

Here's a photo of it's current state.

Drivers side wing needs some attention as does the front valance.

I've had a DMTR 32 sitting around for ages, got it off ebay for fifty quid. Was full of gunk and needed a proper good clean and the main fuel inlet snapped off as soon as I got it out the box... massive pain in the arse. I drilled out what remained of the old union and tapped a 1/16" NPT taper in the hole (in high insite I should have just put and M8 fine thread in there to match the other threads but I wasn't really thinking about that at the time) and stuck on a 1/8" NPT adapter and union on there. Perhaps not the tidiest solution but it works so I'm not going to complain.

Cleaned all the innards, new pump diaphragm, fresh o-rings and gaskets. Couldn't be bothered with cleaning the outside much, one day I'll get mental with the paraffin but this is fine for now.

I had a week free after new year so decided I'd go up to my parents and make a mess in my Dad's workshop replacing the Pierburg, it ended up taking me the full week to get it all fitted and working. Seems like a long time to fit a carb, and it is. It could have taken me a day if I'd used the Weber adapter plate, but I didn't want to do that because it bolts on top of the original Pierburg flange. In my experience these flanges are shit. They leak air, fuel and start to break apart after a month, I've had four on this car and I'd had enough. I spoke to one of the sales rep's at Webcon and the told me they don't do any other type of adapter and I couldn't find one online so I ended up designing my own in CAD and getting it laser cut, this alone took four days total (fairly new to CAD).

Here's a photo of the adapter and spacer after paint, got it cut out of mild steel hence the paint, I would have liked an ali one really but my local laser cutter could only do up to 6mm aluminum which is thinner than I wanted. In the end I went for 8mm steel for the adapter and 5mm for the spacer. That plus the standard 7mm Weber base block gives 20mm height which is needed for the throttle plate to clear the manifold.

Pieburger flange...well and truly gone. The flakey looking stuff is sealer to stop it from leaking. One of

the captive nuts came out with no effort whatsoever, bolts were too tight...the only way to stop any

air leaks.

Had to break out the die grinder to get rid of some excess manifold. The Weber is quite allot longer than the Pierburg, Weber deal with this by putting an angle on their adapter on the primary side so's not to inhibit flow too much, I centred the carb over the hole and shaved off some material at either end.

Before

After, ready for gaskets and carb.

Here it is in all it's glory. Had to make a return spring bracket as Weber no longer sell them, ended up not working as the spring needs preload for a good pedal feel, ended up using a chain of cable ties to the anchor point on the head to get the right preload, will sort something proper soon. My Dad turned some blanking plugs to block off the hoses for the Pierburg choke.

Fired up pretty much instantly which I was hugely surprised about, seemed to idle pretty well and drove okay. Ended up taking the carb off and adjusting the float height as it was flooding, fuel was dripping into the secondary at idle and building up on the butterfly which then pissed out the sides and onto the manifold. Drove it back to mine (70 miles) without much hassle although it does stumble a bit accelerating at low speed, putting it down as blocked pump jet. Going to take it off and have a look tomorrow.

Idle jets were round the wrong way... switched them back around also took the pump jet out and gave it a blast with carb cleaner. Runs really well now, still a little bit of a flat spot around 1500rpm but it's hardly noticeable, possibly fiddle with the mixture might fix it.

This came today also.

Edited 23 January, 201610 yr by Sam123

Awesome, nice to see someone improving a mk2 as opposed to ruining a mk2! :)

It's not uncommon to have a flat spot with the weber, i've read some threads on the forum about that specific issue!

It's not uncommon to have a flat spot with the weber, i've read some threads on the forum about that specific issue!

I had a quick look about for a bit more info and like you say there's quite a bit on tuning Weber's so hopefully I can get it running pretty much how I want it. I've got a 55 idle jet to try instead of the 45 but to be honest it might need a slightly smaller one instead, there's a guy on here who runs a 40 so I'll just have to mess about with it see what can be done. If the 55 makes the flat spot worse then surely that means it's running too richer progression and I should try a small jet?

Couldn't help but stick the rear springs and shocks on this morning, looks pretty low at the back now. Not sure if it's just me being used to the 40mm rake but it makes the front look really high! Will put the fronts on next weekend which should hopefully even it out a bit, handles soo much nicer as it is now which makes me very excited for the fronts to go on!

Edited 24 January, 201610 yr by Sam123

Hi, I've just replaced my second carb flange after having my 1.3 polo in 14 months! I thought it was because it had a weber carb but obviously not. 

Why do they perish so quickly? 

Is there anything that can be done? Or do I just live with replacing it every 8-10 months?