Was this K-Jetronic?
It had the Bosch mechanical injection system. I believe that they called it “constant” injection. Was that the same as K-Jetronic?
It was indeed.
My similar era VW Rabbit used K-Jetronic, and it was indeed a challenge. I wouldn’t say however that buying that car was a big mistake, b/c it provided incentive to figure out how it worked and how to fix it. For whatever reason, the K-Jetronic system seemed to be pretty sensitive to fuel quality, considerably more than my truck. If I hadn’t serviced it myself, I’d have to taken it in for something or another every 3-4 months.
Edit: One advantage I may have had compared to VDC’s Volvo is there was an excellent diy-repair book for that era’s Rabbit. Without that book , considerably more difficult.
hmmm … got to thinking , this must be close to the 50th anniversary for the Rabbit/Golf.
Recollections: 1900 pounds, fairly light weight, yielding good accel even with a modest 1588 cc engine. Pushing the cable-linked clutch pedal was a bit of a chore, and you could feel the steering column move a little when doing it… lol … glass pretty good, wind up windows of course, only 2 doors. Very little tech, AM/FM radio only. No power steering, only a problem when parking. Otherwise very easy to steer. 13 inch tires IIRC. The most unusual thing you’d notice in the engine compartment was the fuel distributor. The other weirdness was something that looked like 3 tennis balls glued together, some sort of vacuum storage. I never had any problems with the vacuum system fortunately. No idea what the vacuum storage was used for. Lug bolts rather than lug nuts. I think the lug-nut-alternative would make it a little easier for the diy’er to get the wheel fastened to the hub. Another thing, no brake booster. This gave the brakes a sort of springy sensation, but stopped the car ok without needing excessive effort. I did have to replace the rear wheel cylinders quite often compared to my truck, don’t know why. The front calipers never caused any grief.
Golf intoduced in May 1974 with 1st production cars built in March, 1974.
1 Like
Addressing the former comments
-
Leasing is rarely an economical alternative unless you can deduct it as a business expense or “you just gotta have a new car”.
-
Keeping a “Beater” as a spare makes more sense provided that you have the space to keep it and you don’t mind paying the annual costs or insurance, tags, etc.
-
Buying a “Beater” as a quick replacement is genius. Can’t tell you how many well maintained, luxury, Buick or Oldsmobiles I’ve seen going for cheap and since most of the mechanical parts were shared with the rest of the GM line, maintenance isn’t a problem.
Sure the ride is like driving a pillow in your soft leather seats, they lack any current electronics and the image is “driving your grandfather’s car” but it’s cheap, maintenance is is cheap, seats 6 and probably has bulk and more trunk space than most current SUV’s.
BTW, I eliminated the venerable Ford Crown Vic’s and Chevy Impala’s from the above because they’re quickly snapped up by taxis and ride shares.
1 Like
If it was a new vehicle with no markup over msrp I wouldn’t mind no haggle pricing
K-Jetronic and KE-Jetronic worked pretty much the same, regardless of what brand the actual car was
this book was pretty good, imo
I KNOW more than one of you seasoned mechanics owned or were aware of this book
And I actually always liked those systems. I thought they were fairly simple and durable. They’re quite reliable, the problems I saw usually started as a simple issue that was compounded by someone who didn’t understand the system and then just made things worse.
1 Like
I had no problems with my ‘83 GTI K Jetronic for the 13 years I owned it. Replaced the injector o-rings once.
I seem to recall vacuum leaks . . . including from those injector o-rings . . . had a profound effect on engine operation
Sadly, in the days when those engines were more common, evap/smoke machines were less common and FAR more expensive than they are now, meaning a smoke machine was more of a luxury, as opposed to standard shop equipment
I remember MANY guys blowing cigarette smoke into various passages, in an attempt to find vacuum leaks
it often worked . . . but the guy was huffing and puffing by then
2 Likes
I wish that you had been available as my mechanic.
The service department at the Volvo dealership (a Pontiac dealership that also sold Volvos) was close to useless. My regular mechanic for my Falcon didn’t want to work on the Volvo.
I used the only two indy foreign car specialist shops in my area at that time, and although they were far superior to the Volvo dealership, they weren’t able to polish that Volvo turd into something desirable.
1 Like
A guy I used to work with fell into the latter category. His wife insisted in driving an ES Lexus sedan with an active end-to-end warranty. His solution was to lease a new one every three years for her. He thought buying a reliable luxury sedan was good enough and would have put the money out for an extended warranty, but she insisted on a new ES when the warranty expired. He could afford it and he complied by leasing one for her.
Im also in that category. My wife insists on a “new car warranty” so we just lease a new Hyundai every 3 years. I actually find it refreshing to not have any maintenance other than oil changes.
Happy Wife, Happy Life….
2 Likes
Thank you for the compliment. But in all fairness, back in the 70’s the idea of anything but a carburetor was foreign (pun intended) to just about every mechanic.
Once you understand Jetronic, you realize they are quite simple systems. As is often the case, problems arise by overthinking things.
1 Like
Yup! My regular mechanic–for the Falcon–was an old guy who was very good… with totally-conventional American cars, but he didn’t want to go near my Volvo. And, even though there were two good indy foreign car shops in the area, most of the cars that they dealt with had carburetors, rather than fuel injection.
I had to replace all four o-rings half a dozen times over the course of 10 years. The rubber would crack for some reason. I’ve never needed to replace the injector o-rings on my 30 year old Corolla.
Re the Bosch fuel system book book above, in addition to the diy’er repair manual I also had the VW factory service manual for the Rabbit. For a diy’er, it was considerably more difficult to understand and I did almost all maintenance, diagnoses, & repairs using the diy’er manual. The main use of the FSM was for the wiring diagrams.
BTW, I’m not complaining about the Rabbit. I bought it b/c it had fuel injection, one of the few affordable fuel injected cars at the time. Anytime you buy into new tech, you have to expect some hiccups.
Didn’t you ever have to occasionally partially disassemble the fuel-distributor and clean it? On mine the metering cylinder would stick in its bore, caused by grit in the gasoline.
Nope. Only thing I did were upgrades, a bigger throttle body, new cam, and high flow exhaust.