The queueing for fuel thread reminded me of a problem I had many years ago. I had a Renault 4 which would often misfire, and in freezing temperatures would not run.
The misfire was caused by water in the fuel, and when a slug of water froze in the pipe from the tank to the pump, no go!
It took me a long time to figure out how the water was getting into the tank. The fuel filler was a short length of metal pipe which was attached to a rubber pipe to the tank, the pipe clip corroded, the pump nozzle pushed the rubber pipe away from the metal stub, (it still refuelled normally), but water thrown up by the back wheel could get into the pipe to the tank.
Any other confusing problems?
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back in the days before Mrs H became Mrs H, I volunteered to service her Triumph Toledo. Oil, brakes, tappets, plugs, new HT set, everything went like clockwork until I came to firing up the engine so I could check the points dwell. No sign of a spark at the coil or across the points. Refit the horrible old pitted points and the engine ran. Refit the new set. Dead.
Turned out that there was a dead short across the new points caused by the plastic insulating bush (remember dripping a drop of clean engine oil on the bush and the dissy cam lobes?) being manufactured with a bit of scrap metal inside. Took the points back to the shop and had the devil's own job getting them changed.
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A breakdown that took a while to figure out (after I stopped shaking), was an obvious ignition problem, instant cut out, lane 2, heavy traffic, fast dual carriageway. The moving contact of the points had broken off, try spotting that in the dark!
I do not miss the "good old days"!
Edited by Old Navy on 09/12/2009 at 14:25
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A diesel not wishing to start when HOT,
but would start when cold, this occured one summer
ie the 1.9TDI lump in der Galaxy at about 50 or 60 thou miles
VW could find no fault with their electronic diagonstic system
It eventually, a couple of starter motors later, cured itself and has never resurfaced.
if one slacked off the master injector while the engine was churning she would start.
No air in the system either.
****************
However more recently
Air WAS getting in after I changed the fuel filter.
Checked the hose ends and clips,....... all fine but still air getting in.
cut a 1/2 inch off the two rubber hose ends and replaced the clips,...... air still getting in.
Checked all pipes and unions right back to the tank all Ok....... but air still getting in.
Finally in desperation....... I changed the new good brand name cartridge fuel filter, for another one of the same brand
NO AIR GOT In
a faulty filter, a hairline crack somewhere??, but no diesel ever leaked out.
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I had a Mini of some vintage back in the early 70s. A few years old, but ran really well and was quite tidy. Its main problem was it wouldn't ever go above 50mph. A trip from Edinburgh to Inverness took about 2 hours longer than it should have. Plugs were gapped; points were gapped then changed and gapped. Tappets were done, carb was cleaned and float level checked. Air filter was changed.
Still wouldn't go as fast as it should have been able to. Quite a sweet little engine, would rev quite happily too.
Eventually worked out, some time later that what was causing the problem, it was the carpet under the accelerator pedal, being quite old it was worn and stretched and would ruck up underneath making it impossible to press the pedal as far as it should have. Sitting at the side of the road, having no load on the engine it would rev to what seemed to be the maximum with no issue, under load it wasn't getting a fully opening carb.
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A humber snipe with twin carbs & huge twin air intake pointing forawrd in the engine bay. This car would drive for a few miles & stop & would only restart after 5 min rest. My governor made us take the fuel tank out & change fuel pumps & pipes carb floats etc etc etc.
I was out on road test and as soon as i put my foot down it died & would not restart but lifted the bonnet & it started. After several repeats I drove back to the garage & discussed with my governor that it had something to do with the bonnet! they all fell about laughing & suggested I was in the wrong trade! Well another roadtest with another driver & as it cut out I lept out the passenger side & lifted the bonnet slowly! only to spot that the sound proofing on the bonnet was getting sucked over the air intakes!!!!!!!
I then had great joy in suggesting the rest of them were in the wrong job! always got taken seriously after that!
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My old Sierra once emptied the contents of its cooling system through the header tank overflow after the engine was switched off. No previous history of cooling system problems, no sign of overheating, all tests for HGF proved negative, engine ran superbly.
I'd done 25,000 trouble free miles in it when this happened, and after simply refilling the cooling system (changing nothing), I did another 60 odd thousand trouble free ones afterwards. The problem never reoccurred, and I never worked out why it did it.
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Been out to many odd breakdowns and had some myself.
One I attended was a Beetle that wouldn't start. Engine spun over like it had a pair !
Tracked it down to two potatoes shoved up the exhaust !
Ted
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>>> Tracked it down to two potatoes shoved up the exhaust ! <<<
Shhhh Teddy, I was a'gonna suggest that for the inconsiderate parking fred :)
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I've posted this before. A year or two back my indy garage man, who is above reproach, showed me a well-used but decent 4 litre XJ6 two of whose HT leads could be removed without affecting the running. I suggested smouldering carbon in the cylinder heads, but he discounted that. I don't know whether it delivered full power with those leads off - just two of them, always the same two - but he was utterly puzzled by it. Told me later he never did work out what was happening.
'The Haunted Jag' perhaps.
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>leads could be removed without affecting the running. I suggested smouldering carbon in the cylinder
Had this phenomenum a few times on the road...Engine running ...just.
Take two leads off...engine same. Put one lead back, engine better.
Usually crack in the dizzy cap between the two ' bad ' leads. Putting one back makes the engine run on 3 pots instead of 2.
Possibly less noticable with a 6 as you've still got 4 to keep it running.
Ted
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Engine running ...just.
Not like that ted. Firing on all six. But I don't know how driveable it was like that.
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Uncle had an F reg Sierra 2.0i (his first non carb car). One day went over a bump (just a tad to quick) and the engine cut out, car just stopped. Pushed the car a few yards home and couldn't figure out why it had stopped and the car would not even turn over. Called out the RAC and after a bit of poking around the problem was discovered. Going over the bump to quick had engaged the fuel injection cut off switch in the boot! This was set to the right position again and the car was fine.
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I 'tuned' a V8 P5 once, ran as sweet as a nut, he called me back a week later cos the fuel consumption was on the heavy side ... I'd got 2 of the plug leads round the wrong way :-D
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A Ford prefect, new shape but 100E engine, I owned would just die at any random time. I reckoned fuel starvation but could find nothing amiss with the system,until after several months I removed the petrol tank turned it upside down and out fell a huge elastic band.
Driving a truck, built around 1943, and pushing it a bit harder than normal, there was a big bang and the world around me turned brown. The radiator had burst covering the cab in rusty water. Cause was down to someone polishing the brass radiator cap blocking the vent hole to the non pressurised system.
Happy days.
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>>Unusual or confusing car problems / defects
I had a Citroen CX for a while. That pretty much sums up the entire ownership experience. (Still miss it...)
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If you filled up with petrol on a Picasso my wife once owned and then turned on the ignition within 60 seconds (e.g. pay at pump) - then the full gauge would go down not up. Only another refuel cycle and counting to 100 would return the gauge to normal operation. Fixed with a software upgrade.
Friend's BMW would drain the battery in 12 hours if you fiddled with the climate control immediately before turning off the ignition. Fixed with a software upgrade.
Another friend's C3 would randomly stop for no reason. Apparently fixed with a software upgrade, but they got rid of the car after losing confidence in it.
I remember the days when you never had these silly computers...
...okay, so cars needed tuning every 3,000 miles, consumed double the amount of fuel, gave out a million times more rubbish from the exhaust, broke down whenever it rained, clutches only lasted 25,000 miles and engine / car reached the end of their life at 50,000 - but those were the days...
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The best car we ever owned was a Peugeot 505 estate. It was large, extremely comfortable and although a two litre petrol was reasonably economical if you didn't thrash it. After a few years it developed a habit of rather violently shaking itself whilst being driven along quite normally. The main dealer in town spend a couple of hundred of my money on it without success so I hawked it around two or three other garages with good reputations.
Nobody fixed it. A new distributor didn't work, new engine mounts didn't work, a new carb didn't work, etc, etc. In the end I traded it in. About a year later the car passed me when I was afoot and I could easily hear that it had a diesel engine. I imagine the buyer got fed up trying to fix the shaking, too.
I still miss that car.
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Land Rover straight 6 Safari, towing trailer with a classic car on it.
Cut out on the contra-flow near Walsall. Like someone had switched it off. Towed to safe bit and left by free recovery. Engine turned but nothing. Good spark, fuel coming out of pipe.
Had carb off, rocker cover off, major stripdown on hard shoulder. Fool ! never checked for spark at plugs.......nowt. Can't be rotor arm, solid brass, what's to go wrong ?
Had a spare in the toolbox, put it in...perfect ! Only an hour wasted !
Ted
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I had a mrk 1 Sirocco which would lose power when gunned - akin to fuel starvation.
After many, many hours of fault finding, it turned out to be a low fuel level in one of the 2 float chambers (Solex) caused by the needle valve coming away from its seating - a real bar steward to find that fault but it was actually fairly common on those carbs I later found.
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Later Austin Ambassador. Stopped at traffic lights, engine just died and wouldn't restart. It spun over, but dead as a Dodo.
With the help of a couple of irate drivers (it was blocking the road) pushed it out of the way.
No spark. Removed dizzy cap and spotted internal wire to points was burnt through. Managed to botch a repair and new piece of wire started smoking!
Eventually found battery clamp had fallen off and dropped across coil terminals. Battery had been replaced a couple of years previously, but not touched since.
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S'funny to think back to some of the easily preventable car problems of yesteryear - like leaving the manually adjustable air filter intake hose in its winter position come summer (rough running when hot) or in the summer pos in winter (rough running caused by carb icing up) when cold.
Another thing that used to fox a lorra folk was if they fitted a 12v coil to a Ford or Vauxhall etc., etc., that had the cold start 'ballast' system in place (or vice versa)
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In the late 1970s I had a Vauxhall Firenza 1800 (seemed like a good idea at the time). It was a real dog of a car, but its crowning moment was one day I was driving along and suddenly the clutch pedal went floppy and dead.
Cable snapped was the obvious first thought. When my tame mechanic looked at it a bit more closely we found the problem wasn't the cable....it was the actual pedal itself had snapped in half (being one which pivoted from the top and came down). It was hanging floppy like someone with a broken leg.
Thinking about it later, it was worrying to wonder what would've happened if it had been the brake pedal
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Brake pedal levers are always MUCH stronger for this very reason, may even still be steel while the clutch lever/pedal is molded plastic? from my limited personal observations.
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I have just posted my daughters problem over in technical. I dont have access to the car so guesswork involved.
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One of my first cars was a Vauxhall Chevette estate. I bought it from a guy who speciallised in ex RAF vehicles.
The first problem was a tinkling noise coming from the back of the car. I checked the exhaust, checked the wheels, suspension, everything. No joy.
Still kept hearing a faint tinkling sound of something metallic.
Eventually I jacked the car up and discovered a ring spanner dangling from a nut on the rear brake drum. Despite driving for weeks along bumpy country lanes, the thing had never been flung off and one end kept dragging along the road surface.
The second problem which I never resolved was if I hit a huge bump or pothole the car would suddently make a horrendous sound and there'd be a terrible vibration (clutch? propshaft?). I could make it stop however by going over another large bump further down the road!
Bizarre
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One or two spring to mind.
Cambelt on a Bedford CF van jumped on tooth - everything looked fine, but it would barely start.
Early Volvo fuel injection failure caused by a poor earth on a relay which in itself was caused by a rusty mounting - hard to spot because the rust didn't look extensive enough to cause the problem.
Poor hot weather running in my Triumph Herald - caused by fuel vaporising in the carb float chamber atop the hot engine.
Known as percolation, the cure was to open the bonnet and wait....
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Sudden braking and declutching problem...
Many years ago I hired a Nissan Micra Mk 1 from a very reputable car hire place in the East Midlands (#9.95 a day IIRC) and was driving my brother home when I found the car would keep on declutching and braking of its own accord; only when on a quiet stretch of road, and I could not for the life of me work out what was causing it. My brother finally gave the game away by bursting out laughing. It turned out the car was one often used by a driving school and still had the instructor's brake and clutch pedals connected, which my brother had spotted and failed to tell me about.
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well armstrong sid the prake pedal operates in a different way to the clutch & the pressure load point is normally mounted on the axis line of the pivot & the brakes servo operated whereas the cluch pedal normally has a pull action used right at the top of the pedal for maximum leverage to make the clutch as light & cotrollable as possible hence the weakness.
There were one or two vehicles out there that did have a brake pedal weakness but very rare & normally will only snap or bend in a serious accident! designed that way to reduce leg injuries.
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