golf starting/running badly

hello everyone im new to these forums...looks great tho :smile:

its a big story but here goes......

girlfreinds 1992 golf 1.4 cl...(i think its an abd engine code) 130000 miles and its got major woes :mad:

went for its mot 2 weeks ago. the guy her parents usually use for car repairs reckoned the lambda sensorwas knackered and he replaced it and did a general service...or so he says. almost immediately the car starts running very poorly. idles roughly and pulls very slowly under any amount of throttle...at about 1/4 throttle it runs normally...also makes more noise than it used to. seemed to get better as the engine heats up and once its at normal temps it runs ok. the mechanic then refuses to take any of our calls and drops off the face off the earth.

it goes to another garage who say the lamda sensor looks old and probably wasnt replaced but they say the exhaust emmissions are above the 4.5% co and the replace the catalytic converter which they say has sorted the emissions but it only just passed. it seemed to run a bit better...wasnt expecting miracles cos its done 130000 miles.

over the last week its slowly got worse until today it wont even start.
it turns over, it has fuel and spark. when i trun it over it tries to start very noisily and erratically. took off the air filter cover and it was full of unburnt fuel vapour. tried to start it with the air filter off and it was the same but when i stop trying all the fuel comes shooting out of the plenum/throttle body in a vaporised form. i disconnected the fuel solenoid harness (brown connector on top of the throttle body near the front) and as it had no fuel going through it it just turned over smoothly by the starter motor. i also noticed that the crankcase pipe thsat connects to the air filter box and the crankcase was full of mayonnaise. took that off and cleaned it all out. noticed that the unknown part which this pipe connects to on the engine block is also full of mayonnaise and it was oozing out when i tried starting the car with tthe pipe disconnected. ive not taken this part of the engine off yet but i plan to as soon as i know what it is and how it comes off.

so is it a fuel managment problem or is it related to the back pressure not being right due to the sludge in the pipe/carnkcase part?

i changed the thermostat housing some months ago due to it being cracked and the thermostat was also replaced as it was passing and not heating the engine/car up properly. there was mayo under the oil filler cap b4 i did this but not since so i guessed the mayo was there cos it wasnt heating up properly and never getting rid of the condensation. oil looks ok on dipstick but this car has a thousand oil leaks and needs topping up a fair bit.

any ideas why it dont want to start???

i could take pics of stuff if needed....many thanks in advance...nick

ps if i dont get it fixed its goin to the scrapyard....help me save the old girl :uhoh: