Club 80-90 Forums

Hi (apologies for the essay!.....)

Any more suggestions please... My 1.9 petrol has been having issues for the past few months and three recoveries later am none the wiser! First time was after a 3 hour successful journey, stopped for a while, then when moved on power felt like 'pulling back' under my foot, even tho I hadn't reduced acceleration. Kangarood a bit then it just cut out. Restarted and then happened few more times til just gave up. Friendly passerby detached the pipe from carb and blasted it thru...seemed to work, bit bumbly, but got me home. Had carb checked and looked clean. Used few weeks later and did same after about 1.5 hours into journey.... Got recovered, told was fixed by fitting fuel filter. On our way again and felt fine.... Then after no use for about 1 hour, took him out again on small, hilly lanes, did exactly same as before so limped back to campsite. Ended up being recovered back from devon (cheap petrol for this trip!!) 2nd garage tried changing rotor arm and distributor cap but made no difference....2 hours later none the wiser. When home i had new leads, spark plugs and ignition coil, then drove fine on hour test drive. Final straw, camping this weekend, fine there....kangarood some of the way back! I'm losing confidence but so far still resisting pressure to get rid! Any ideas? As little as I know, it just makes sense that is fuel related, but no-one can seem to find problem. Thanks!
Emma

Fuel pump. Its possibly weak and can't always keep up. Fit a new mechanical one or go electric like I did. Search for 'facet'.

If you have a Pierburg 2e type carb fitted, there is an in-line filter that lives inside the metal inlet tube on the carb.body, via the rubber fuel hose. Its conical shaped and if blocked [you might need to carefully dig it out, best replace it if its a bit tired though] will cause fuel starvation.

As you've changed most of the electrical bits then its probably fuel related, though a new Hall sender [little ign.amplifier that lives in the l/h of the engine bay with black leads on it] might be bad and would give issues. But this sounds more like fuel to me.

Of course, it's possible to remove the rubber pipe and crank the engine to see if fule spurts out [be careful, especially if the engine is hot] but it wont always explain, as I've detailed below:

My own van, whilst in France last month, was giving similar sounding issues. I checked the filters and eventually found that the fuel pump's operating rod was worn [very common] it needs to be 100mm long. If it's worn down, which it will do over time, then it cannot fully operate the fuel pump'sl lifter arm, thus not supplying enough fuel as the engine demands it. However, not only was my rod bad , the pump too was worn, so I ended up replacing both and the van has run perfectly well since.

Let us know how you get on.

As what Ralph/Doug says, but also check the coil (if you can see if you can swap for a known one that works in order to eliminate as this will save you spending out if the problem persists).