Have you considered powerstart or ezistart when it won't start. Just thinking if it's warm & fails to start a quick squirt of the dreaded fluid into the air inlet, if it tries to run or actually starts then that really eliminates the electrics. Having read the whole of the posting I'm inclined to think the problem is fuel related not electrics.
Alan...
I am beginning to think along those lines myself. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to take the car for a good run to get it hot since last weekend, and by the time I thought about a possible fuel cause after the last time I had difficulty, everything had cooled down again.
I will pursue two possibilities - flooding (needle valve not sealing, float level too high) and vaporising (the little pipe from the float chamber to jet looks rather exposed to the heat from the exhaust manifold).
I don't think I have any Powerstart though. It must be 30 years ago I last bought anything like that.
Jim
A bad idea. You need to fit suppressors to both ends for those to be half as effective as the carbon string type - and that works out more expensive. Plus the fact that most coils and distributor caps are designed for the plug in type.
There is one other, though it doesn't sound likely, that the pump diaphragm may be split - they are serviceable. But I would have thought that would be a problem when cold too.
Errm, the connectors were plug in, they screwed into the cable not the coil and distributor. The connectors had suppressors built in and were extremely easy to use. I never had any complaints about them at the time I used them.
For everybody who contributed to this thread, thanks for all the suggestions. And this is what I found...
In the float chamber, the float has a metal mounting strip which pivots on a metal pin, while the needle valve opens and closes according to the position of the metal strip on the top of the float.
Goodness knows how long the float has been there, but the friction of the pivot on the pin had worn away the mounting strip until one side wore completely through and the other side can't be more than a thou thick. So the float was tipping sideways once it raised the needle valve, which didn't quite shut off as a result.
While the engine was running, this slow dribble of extra fuel just showed as a slightly rich mixture, but once the engine stops, the remainder of the pump pressure slowly overfilled the float chamber which came out of the jet and made a pool in the inlet manifold (which doesn't have a drain). Which made it far too rich to start on a hot engine, but leave it a couple of hours and the excess evaporated and the engine would start.
So a new float and new pin later (and a new needle valve, though I might have got away with using the old one), I have just got to put the carb back tomorrow and try it out. But I am expecting the problem to be fixed. But what a problem - I have never heard of anything like this before!
Jim
I'm surprised you didn't smell it?
Jim
I'm surprised that you could not smell petrol if that was the case. If you had checked the mixture at idle it should have indicated a rich mixture and you should have run out of adjustment in the jet, this would have eliminated or tracked down the problem sooner.
r
Well done! - hope that's sorted it - now to _enjoy_ the car !
Regards Adrian (just about to potter off in his '64 Traveller to set up a stall at a week-long Art Exhibition near Kinsale, Co Cork, Ireland.
The float chamber never overflowed, it just filled to a level where the top of the jet was lower than the surface of the petrol, so the excess bled into the manifold. And of course, I was trying to establish why the car wouldn't start, so I was turning it over, which would have sucked the fumes into the engine. Think of it as trying to start a hot engine on full choke, which is why, once the engine had got cold, it would start.
Yes there was some smell of petrol, but not particularly strong and I assumed that it was coming from the tail pipe (I was in the street, and there was always some wind), which is why the first port of call was the electrics. There is an air filter on the outside of the carb too, so the petrol fumes didn't have an easy path to the outside air under the bonnet.
I imagine I have replaced a serviceable coil, HT leads and rotor arm that I changed during my process of elimination. I am not going to put them back to find out if they are serviceable though. But I think I will keep the old float for a rogues gallery!
Jim
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