Random cut out - 1.9 petrol 1990

[Bozykid]

Hi , it's been a while , which is a good thing I suppose in this section
The van starts fine every time no issues but ...
The van out of the blue just cuts out not electrically feels very much like runs out of fuel it just dies and ignition lights come on.
Sit there for 1 min sometimes less starts again fine , but of backfiring the weekend which is a new thing

Someone mentioned to me about the breather pipe for the fuel tank ?? He said the tank will vacuum and stop
Fuel coming in then slowly air leaks back in thus letting it start and run again .

Sometimes I can go 2 miles or more and it doesn't happen, sometimes it will happen 3 times in 1 mile.
Bit stuck can anyone shed some light ? I would appreciate it

The fuel filter has been moved to the engine bay (not by myself previous owner I'm aware of the dangers of this )
When it happened the other day I got the wife to try and start it straight away which it ,,won't normally do and I could see the fuel getting pulled down the pipe towards carb and then After if wouldn't start I could see it moving back up the tube again.

Help ?


Thanks
Matt

[itchyfeet]

next time it does it relese the fuel cap temporarily to prove if its a blocked breather or not.

Assuming it isn't check your filler neck, if cracked or perished crap gets into tank and blocks the outlet pipe.
Could also be a faulty pump or pushrod.

MOVE, the filter and fit a new one in the correct place.

Check you actually have fuel, auges are very unreliable.

also a tiny filter in the carb inlet pipe.

[Mr Bean]

How sure are you that it is not electrical? To be sure of this you must at least check that the plugs are sparking. Lots more to check too. You don't give much info on the Engine- carbs or injection etc. Yonks ago I had similar problems with my 2.1 digijet WBX and after about a dozen recoveries it turned out to be the ECU. Hope its not that serious
Cheers CS

[300CE]

Check your vacuum advance hose from dizzy to carb as could be down to an air leak - also check for leaks around the carb by spraying carb cleaner/wd40 to see if there is a change in note.

I have actually been suffering the same problem - had an intermittent back fire (normally happens just once) and then would 'silently' stall when I came to a stop but was fine if I re-started. I seem to have resolved the backfire issue by replacing the distributor (previously replaced the ignition module/leads/coil/plugs/rotor arm/dizzy cap/fuel pump & push rod/vacuum advance), but the silent stalling still remained!

This weekend I cleaned the idle control valve on the carb and cleaned the fuel inlet/outlet jets. I also increased the tickover to 1000 rpm and took her for an hour's spin & no cutting out so hopefully this has resolved it.

[Bozykid]

Thanks all for advice , something to look at the weekend cheers .

300ce , funny you should mention backfire and idle issue as mine has backfired just twice ever but I've always felt the idle seems a little random like choke was stuck on

Will get the jets looked at

Thanks again
Matt

[300CE]

When you start your van from cold Matt, do the revs rise straight to about 2000rpm? Mine stopped doing this with the old distributor and sounded a bit lumpy upon start up. New dizzy resolved this.

[Moonrakers]

An occasional backfire and cutting-out while driving (again, would not immediately restart) for me was cured by replacing the following parts, many of which were original 30-year-old items with 75,000 miles on them -

Distributor cap and rotor (removed the rev-limiting item and installed the regular one)
Coil
Ignition amplifier
plugs and leads
Ignition switch
Deleted engine-bay fuel filter, renewed all fuel lines and filter
Fuel pump
Renewed vacuum lines to carb
New battery

Cleaned body and engine earths and checked earth crown in fuse box
Cleaned small carb inlet filter

My cut-out issue was so intermittent it would have been difficult to have replaced single items to test one by one so, after cutting out and only just managing to roll onto the hard shoulder from the right-hand lane of a jammed motorway with kids on board, I decided to go through it all at once using the best parts I could get from Brickwerks. Absolutely no issues since, well worth the money and a few hours.