Club 80-90 Forums

Afternoon all,

Our van appears to have developed either an ignition or fueling problem recently.
It will start and drive quite happily, but then the engine will start to cut out, usually when it's been cruising at a steady speed for a while, or if the power is increased to climb a hill for example. It takes some delicate action with the accelerator to keep it going, but a couple of times recently I've had to pull over very sharply, at which point it usually stalls (not always) once it has stopped, it takes a lot of turning over to start up again,
but then it is usually okay for a while again.

I changed the dodgy engine bay fuel pipes and filter last week, together with a very burnt distributor cap and rotor arm. We went away on Friday
night, and the van drove great over 65 miles or so! I enjoyed a few glasses of red wine at Robin Hoods Bay thinking that the cap and rotor car
must have been at fault, and how pleased I was that we can use it again, but on Sunday morning, just 15 minutes from the camp site, the bloody things started acting up again whilst going up the bloomin steep hill out of Whitby. The drive home wasn't fun at all

It is really weird, because most of the time, the Van drives great, but when this fault starts to appear it makes it undrivable.

Because it is so intermittent, it is a nightmare to diagnose, because the damn things always runs fine on the driveway! I'm thinking
that this may be the Carb, as it feels very like carb icing, but could the fuel-pump become intermittent in use?

I was hoping the we could have a few weekends away before the end of Summer, but I simply daren't go anywhere again.

thanks in advance for any help.

Rich

yep. definately sounds like fuel starvation, an old revenge trick is to cut some rags up into small pieces and stuff them into your opponents tank, when they cruise(motorways etc) the rags get sucked into the pickup , when they stall (and call rescue) the pieces fall off and just float around again, no one can understand it!!! even pressure washing the tank doesnt get them out. wicked is it not ?? but that sounds like the kind of thing you are describing. fuel starvation.

I had a similar intermittant fault on mine. Only occurred twice - but I'd already cond filters, checked lines etc.

Turned out to be the pump, £45 later and a new one - its run nice ever since.

I've changed the rubber fuel hoses in the engine bay, and fitted new filters front and rear (well you know what I mean), the mot was last week too, so I took the opportunity to have a really good look at the vans underbelly, and the fuel line 'looked' okay, in fact I was very pleasantly suprised as eveything underneath looks in great condition!
So, fuel pump first then, as that's easy, I really hope that it isn't crap in the tank though

Thanks to everyone for their advice, I really do appreciate it.

Rich

I wondered if there was a revlimiter on them as I get it if I allow the revs to creep up,but nothing as bad as our friends prob.I was doing 70 in 4th and she started to cut out but ok when I changed to 5th,I could do my usual 120 then.
Don

Yep - I think you'll find that the standard DG Arm has a rev limiter (something like 5760 RPM). But I have to say I've never really had mine that high.

Something to do with wanting the engine to last and having bigger tyres fitted

The new rotor arm that I've fitted was marked up as 5400rpm, but the fault feels exactly the same as with the old rotor arm. The cutting out seems to be worse in 4th (top) gear at around 50 - 55mph.

cheers

Rich

Someone put a (cheaper?) unlimited rotor arm in my DG. I found out when my throttle cable stuck during a gear change!

syncroand101 wrote:Yep - I think you'll find that the standard DG Arm has a rev limiter (something like 5760 RPM). But I have to say I've never really had mine that high.

Something to do with wanting the engine to last and having bigger tyres fitted

In my defence I didn't realise I was in still in 4th .
Don

Are you sure that the tank is not vacumming?? When it happens, remove the filler cap and see if there is a pop when released

T3teedubya wrote:VeeDubster, you mention "filters" changed. More than one filter?
It's generally advised to have only one and that should be the one near the tank. Definitely no filter in the engine room.

There is a filter under the van near the fuel tank, and one in the engine bay, the van was like this when I bought it, and it ran fine.
I have now changed these filters, but the problem remains.
I have enough new pipe left to remove the engine bay filter if required, is this really a bad idea?
many thanks again,
Rich

Headley18 wrote:Are you sure that the tank is not vacumming?? When it happens, remove the filler cap and see if there is a pop when released

This crossed my mind when the problem hit us big time on the A19 on Sunday! However, a quick check didn't suggest that there was a vacuum in the tank.
cheers
Rich

Mine did exactly the same thing when I first got it - after changing all the same bits (and getting shot of the extra filter I also had) nothing changed, looking in the carb revealed a float chamber full of poo (the previous owner appears to have mixed cement on the pick up bed quite often so this was hardly suprising!), cleaning this out and blowing through the jets seems to have permenently solved it (7,000 miles later it is still ok). I did bugger the gasket stripping the carb though.