Will Holman

Contributor

I don’t remember ever working on a Jetta before, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t – just that I don’t remember it! However, I do remember a friend having a Mk2 Golf GTI with 200,000 miles on the clock that was still OK, so the miles on this one shouldn’t be an issue. I have worked on the K-jetronic before on my Mercedes, though. That was the KE-JET which has an electronic element to it, but I think this one is just the basic K-jet, which should be simpler.

I think the first step will be to get both fuel pumps checked, working or replaced as necessary, and then it will be a matter of seeing if the metering head is gunked up. Mind you, if the petrol is 20 years old then it will be horribly stale, but it won’t have contained any ethanol so we might get away without that problem. We won’t know until we get some fuel up to it, but I think I will do a compression test first because there is no point spending out money on the fuelling side if the engine is knackered. I don’t expect that will be a problem because Martyn says it was running fine when it was parked up.

If the compression checks out OK, then we will sort the fuel side, change some of the time-expired ignition components and see if we can get it running. We will be able to form a more detailed battle plan next issue when I have spent a day poking about. I must say my initial overall impressions are that it is not too bad, though I should add that I was looking at it in a barn with poor lighting! Is it just me who thinks it is an odd-looking thing with that high boot line, though? I reckon it would look much better balanced if the boot lid came down to the swage line, but then I suppose the boot would not have been as large. Still, that is just a personal thought. Let’s get the spanners out and see what the mechanical situation is like.