Need help from the old school VW gurus

[Ruthlessone3k]

Just bought a 1987 Cabby, took it for a couple test drives and it ran great. Of course on the way home it misfires a couple times then straightend out and ran fine. Then I had trouble getting it started. got it started it ran like crap, constant misfires and hesitation. Any advice would be great!

Heres what I've tried so far.
Got the distirbutor cap and rotor button off and cleand them up. had a little bit of carbon build up but nothing out of the ordinary, as expected it didn't help.

Changed the Vacuum line to the vacuum advance, once again didn't help, still hard to start and runs really rough.

tried to manually advance the timing a tad to see if it helps, seemed to but after it cooled off went back to the same problems so I set the timing back where it started and I'm stumped now.

I'm going to try and pull the plugs tomorrow IF I can find a wrench to fit them. Tried today but my largest spark plug socket is too small and I live in Germany and stores are closed on sunday so finding the appropriate wrench may have to wait till monday.

[CajunSpike]

Take a look at the fuel filter, under the hood, near the battery. If it looks like its been in there forever...good idea to change it.

[Ruthlessone3k]

I doubt thats the problem, it looks pretty new. I'll probably change it for good measure though since it is so easy to access. I'm thinking it may be fuel injector o-rings since there is a package of new ones in the glove box and I've heard they can cause vacuum problems, which is what it is acting like. I just dont understand why this would cause this problem with hesitation and misfires. anybody have a good explination or other ideas???

[CajunSpike]

Read up on the CIS trouble shooting guide.

http://www.cabby-info.com/fuel.htm

[92 Drop Top]

When I bought my 92, it did pretty much the same thing. I put on a new cap, rotor, wires and plugs. One plug wire had broken at the boot and was just pushed back in and made for some intermittant running. New oil & filter, fuel filter and went over the vacum connections.
I figured I'd better just replace everyting so I knew where I was at.

Runs good now.

[Ruthlessone3k]

Thanks for the tips, I'll start changing out the simple stuff this week and also do some trouble shooting on the cis.