OT-motronic help needed

[amalventano at sc.rr.com (Allyn)]

the jetta has always taken a bit of cranking to start. not repeated
cranking, but like 3-5 secs before it catches, which seemed odd, but it
never really bothered me. today the wife leaves and i hear repeated cranking
coming from the jetta. not good. the wife comes in after cranking the jetta
for minutes on end... "honey, it wont start".

great...

so i do the usual checks, spark is good, i smell fuel after cranking for a
while, that must be good as well. hmm, still no start. swap in a spare coil
just in case, no dice. start getting overcome by the smell of excess fuel
after all of this cranking, hrm, might be fuel after all. i figure i'll
crank it some without fuel in case it has somehow flooded. disconnect
injector header control line (plug on right side of fuel rail). crank crank
vroom!

then...

vroom vroom vroom vroom (umm, shouldnt this stop soon?) vroom vroom

so it goes for like 10-15 seconds, sounding almost like normal idle, then
dies. after i recover from being stumped i crank again, starts for a few
secs, dies. crank again, front fires (oops), then dies. reconnect injector
plug, wont start. disconnect, starts, runs for 10 secs, dies.

at this point my wife lets me know that she has smelled gas at idle for
about a week now (good thing it wasnt an oil light).

i finally managed to get it started with the plug in, and it seems to be
cooperating for the time being (back to the usual 3-5 sec cranking time
before starting).

so, i figure i've got injectors leaking by, but its idling pretty good
without fuel, as if its more than one injector thats leaking. is this
possible? has anyone else seen anything like that happen?

TIA for info/assistance
Al