Club 80-90 Forums

My 1984 DG engine had some issues. My friend (a mechanic) says "Let's build it" rather than buying a reconditioned engine. Great!

So, we have now rebuilt it (at great expenses!). New CAM, Heads and valves redone (professionally), everything back together, but do you think we can start it! NO!

The engine turns over very sluggishly almost as if the battery was a little flat. So off I go and buy a new battery. Leave it on charge over night and try again. Still turns over but will not start.

Today I wanted to see what would happen if I took the spark plugs out. It turns over a lot easier (as I think you would expect). Whilst the plugs were out, had a sniff. They don't smell of petrol - shouldn't they? You would have thought that if petrol was getting into the cyclinders, the you would be able to smell petrol, wouldn't you?????

Can someone please give an idiot like me a guide to fault finding this as I am getting to the end of my patience and feel like throwing petrol over the effing thing and claiming on the insurance!!!

HELP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks

Idiot Jim

Mentioned this a few times but try a capful of petrol down the carb throat and see if that encourages it. It could simply be that fuel line is dry and needs time to come through. A few goes of that often sorts things out.

mechanical fuel pump has to pull the fuel from the tank at the front upto the carb and only pumps when engine turning so keep turning it over plugs out with the hose from the pump to the carb off till fuel pumps out readily,into your container of choice, connect to carb keep turning over and then once the carb is primed put plugs back in check leads are connected in right order put a teaspoon of fuel down the carb and it should start if everything else is good, also turning it over like this will help to prime the oilways too so when it does catch there's some lube there for the bearings, check oil light goes out and turn off, check for leaks etc and recheck oil level before running up to temp.

CovKid wrote:Mentioned this a few times but try a capful of petrol down the carb throat and see if that encourages it. It could simply be that fuel line is dry and needs time to come through. A few goes of that often sorts things out.

Done this a few times if your engine fires you know it just not sucking fuel to the pump what i do is suck the pipe (like you are syphoning it works for me every time)


Dave

It's not a fuel pump issue as I have an electrical fuel pump! The old mechanical one packed up years ago, and I have a new mechanical on order as we speak.

Will try chucking some fuel down the carb anyway so we what happen. As they say in the Dr Pepper advert - "What's the worse than could happen?"

Success!

No petrol smell on the spark plugs means no petrol getting to them! Obvious really

The problem was that even though we had turned the engine a lot, oil presure was still not up to the correct level and so the valves weren't opening.

It's probably all wrong, but we came up with a solution. Pull the van along behind a car with the van in gear, causing the engine to turn, which in turn pumps the oil round building up pressure. Once around the estate, and hey presto, it only goes and starts! Oh happy days!

thanks

Jim