EDIT: I'm an idiot. Cylinder one is on the far left side when looking at it from the front. Fixed. Sorry for wasting anybody's time!

1998 vw jetta gt. 2.0
Just changed my spark plugs and distributor cap/ rotor.

Did the plugs first, checked to see how it ran, and it fired up fine. Then changed the cap and rotor. Now it won't start.

I'm almost positive that i kept the wires in the same location as previously. 1,3,4,2 with 1 being in the bottom right corner of the cap if you are looking at it from the front of the car (assuming cylinder 1 is on the far right when looking at it from the front of the car).
A hold down clip for the dist cap broke off, and now it isn't TOTALLY tight, but i dont think it would cause it to not start. I originally had it zip tied pretty tight, but didnt work. (as soon as i can get it running - i plan on taking to a shop to have a new distributor put in - or atleast fixing the clip in some way)

I've tried putting the old cap and rotor back on - didnt work. I've moved the wires around on the cap, and got a brief start with an obvious misfire. My next test is going to be installing new wires (don't really want to do that yet - have 1 year old wires).

Anyway... any ideas what my issue might be?

 

Welcome to the forum.


If it ran before then you have mixed up the firing order.

You should have marked No.1 cylinder with tape or tipex. No.1 should be bottom left corner of the cap if you are looking at the engine from the front of the car. The distributor rotates anti-clockwise so attach each lead in the correct sequence 1,3,4,2. If the cap retaining clip is broken/missing then you should find on at a scrap yard, Bosch distributors are common.

https://volkswagenforum.com/forum/ne...gnature-34185/ Your engine code is 9A.