She's getting too excited!

[Dan Wood]

Anyone seen this behaviour before?

Van starts fine when warm or cold, runs like a dream, drives perfect etc..

BUT if I decide to 'thrash' her (e.g. foot flat to foor...) I get a strange problem when changing gear:

I lift my foot off the accelerator, dip the clutch ready to change gear and then hear the poor old girl screaming as if I still had my foot flat on the accelerator!

I've had a quick look at the pedal and cable, and it doesn't seem to be sticking...

Anyone come across this before? It's as if 'flooring' it builds up so much fuel in the carb that it takes her a while to burn it off!

Maybe it's just her way of telling me she's old and needs treating with more respect. She never used to do this...

[camper]

What is the engine ?I was thinking if it has a throttle damper on the carb that may be your problem .

[Simon Baxter]

Squirt some lubricating/freeing oil to the little linkage to the right hand side of the carb.
Maybe the cable, they are very very long! They run through a tube and sometimes get dirt/water in them which causes problems.
Also, at the front end there is a little sleeve part on the inner cable that holds the rubber boot to keep the water out, rubber boots perish and fall off or break into pieces, maybe a prt of this is sticking in the end of the cable under the drivers floor.
Check the the linkage below the pedal isn't bent, does the pedal stick down when the problem happens?

[Dan Wood]

Oops! I should I've said it's a 1.9 DG, but Si probably knew that already

I'll have a good fettle round next weekend and see if the problem resolves itself. I did remember when I had my quick look that the plastic tube the throttle cable is in has broken and split, so maybe there is some rubbing/perishing/muck somewhere!

The pedal doesn't stick down when it happens though...

[Dan Wood]

OK, so cleaning the cable run and linkages has helped, BUT:

Engine now has nasty 'ticking' sound at all speeds. It's very noticeable at tick-over, and this has only happened since then engine has been revving it's bo***cks off during gear changes with a sticky throttle. I think I've bust something.

It drives OK, and there's no excessive vibration so I don't think I've lost a cylinder (yet!). Starting seems a bit harder than usual though.

I was thinking it was just a tappet, but a 30 min drive round hasn't shut it up. Is there any manual adjustment on these that I can look at?

I've got a mate coming round tonight to listen to it and see what he thinks. (He's much more mechanically minded than me!) I was hoping for a trip down the M1 on Friday night, but I need to fix this first in case it is going to cause some major damage.

So, any ideas what might go tick,tick,tick,tick,tick after you've 'overworked' a poor 1.9DG ?

And Si, if you're reading this - when have you got a free slot at the yard?

[Hacksawbob]

one way to isolate the source of a noise is to listen through a tube and move the end of the tube around the engine till you find where is noisiest, engine stethoscope are available too, if your neighbours didn't think you were mad before..... Noise descriptions never seem to translate to text on the web too well, record it and transfer it too an MP3 then upload it to a webspace so we can all have a laugh, I mean listen!

[Dan Wood]

You can listen to the mystery here:

Tick tick tick...

Consensus of opinion from those friendly brick-yard folks (80-90 was on 'holiday' last night ) was that this is probably a noisy tappet.

So, all I need now is some advice on how to fix it. I've checked the oil levels, taken her for a 30 min drive and there is no improvement. Van was serviced at the brickwerks last month, so oil and filter are new.

I've got some rocker cover gaskets on order, so I can open her up and have a look to see if it's anything obvious. (It'll need to be obvious 'cos I don't have a frelling clue!)