fuel starvation?

[pyoorkate]

So, after the main jet decided to fall out, and the carb was disassembled and reassembled by a very nice RAC bloke who apparently used to be a Vauxhall Mechanic, back in the days of the Viva; he had a fiddle with the idle and mixture settings because the idle was a bit low and fairly lumpy.

The car then ran better, but seemed to be somewhat lumpy when warm. So then I fiddled with the mixture a bit and for the past 2 days have enjoyed a really nice happy running car.

Until today, pulling onto the motorway as I accelerated had a sudden loss of power and from there onwards the car would only have any power with full choke. With the choke all the way out the car runs fine - brought me back home, but obviously something is distinctly amiss. Pushing the choke in - the engine will just about idle, but it's very lumpy and has no power (you can't pull away). Revving the engine is lumptastic too.

I don't *really*, *hugely* want to take the carb apart again, if there's another idea, but I'm a bit stuffed at the moment because Brick is my only alledgely health vehicle (from a fleet of four, yes, I suck) - and it'll have to do the commute to work tomorrow in it's current sickly state (since I leave at 6:30am, I don't really have time to fix it before work).

[pyoorkate]

...and just to clear it up. I stripped the carb and there appeared to be a ginormous lump of *Bleep* right there in the main jet. Must have got in while he was putting the thing back together. I've also stuck an inline fuel filter in while I was playing with the thing.

That zenith carb, not as scary as it looks

[lambaj]

Looks like you solved the problem. Amazing how many times a lump of crud gets into the jet! Something to do with it being at the bottom of the fuel bowl....... Daft design
Still, the inline filter will help a lot with future crud detection. Hopefully 'Brick' will be all nice and reliable from now on.

Next thing will be the contact breaker, then the wire from the dissy to the coil.......

Cheers
Tony (HA21)

[pbottomley]

I always wonder why the flexible hose from the tank to the pump is never long enough to get a nice inline filter in without lots of swearing and grazzed knuckles

[pyoorkate]

Aye, it's a bit tight innit. And y'know what? After 300 miles this weekend there's nothing much in it. Of course, this weekend the Alternator failed....in Thetford...at 11 at night*

Do you see how I'm at work? No? *muttergrumble* Still, now we have a Viva with a nice new alternator.

* Well, actually it failed on the way to Huntingdon but appeared to be charging at motorway revs, just not at idle, sadly I was wrong, it was just managing to produce enough power to cause the warning light to switch off. So I thought I'd sort it tomorrow, only when we got some of the way back it appeared that it wasn't charging at all, and by Thetford the battery was stone cold flat.