Coasting to a stop

[Offshore]

Hi guys, newbie to the forum having owned my 1970 Traveller 3 months.
Couple of weeks ago the engine had fuel starvation and cruised to a stop. Could get her to run and drive 100 yards or so before cruising to a stop again. Got the RAC out who towed me home diagnosing a faulty fuel pump (rather elderly looking thing). Consulted the workshop manual (BL one) and cleaned the points with very fine wet and dry and finished with contact cleaner.

So far so good and has lasted a couple of weeks until now. The car is my daily commute and has started doing the same, cutting out and no amount of revving or changing down will get the engine to do anything other than die and the car coast to a stop. Wait ten seconds, start the engine and all is well for the rest of the journey. Seems to happen when I am cruising at 50+ but not too sure on that.

Have ordered a new set of points from SU as a stop gap before buying a new pump after Christmas if needed.

Any ideas where I should start looking? Reversing car into office car park and opening drivers door this morning to check line alignment I felt the air smelt like the car was running rich (after an 11 mile journey) but maybe I'm just getting paranoid! Coasting to a standstill on fast straight country roads in rush hour is also quite scary!


All tips and hints gratefully received.

[IslipMinor]

Hi and welcome to the MMOC forum - where are you located?

When it stops, is the fuel pump ticking continuously? If there is a fuel shortage, the pump should tick furiously!

If not, can you get it 'coast to a stop' somewhere quiet? If you can, as soon as it dies, turn off the ignition and stop the car. Remove the top from the float chamber and look to see if there is any fuel in it! If no fuel, then fuel pump, electrical feed to the pump or a blockage/restriction is the most likely cause.

If there is plenty of fuel, then need to look elsewhere, but see if it's fuel related first.

[David W.]

If the carb bowl is wet with fuel on the outside and dripping, then it's the float in the bowl is not keeping its level, and flooding out the engine.
Crud in the line contaminating the float valve or leaking float.
David

[Roni]

I had the same symptoms on a previous car. It would just randomly stop and after stopping to try and see the fault, and not finding it, it would restart like normal. Eventually the fault was traced to the electric pump which was "sticky." I found that turning the key off and on again unstuck it until a more permanent solution was found.

[Offshore]

Thanks guys for your replies. Off course Martha hasn't exhibited any signs of misbehaviour in recent days. Having said that, its Monday tomorrow and work....

Roni - what was your more permanent solution - a new fuel pump?

I gather its polite on this forum to advise the outcome so I will try and remember to post as and when I get a permanent solution.

[bmcecosse]

Since cleaning the points solved the problem for a few days.....I reckon it's a good bet this is the problem! Do it again!! Avoid an 'electronic' pump if buying a new one - but I would buy a secondhand one on ebay - fit new points, and then swap it on to the car, and carry the old one as spare. Next time it stops - don't switch off - lift the bonnet and clatter the pump with something hard - if it bursts into life and ticks away steadily - this rather confirms...

[David W.]

"clatter the pump with something hard"

In Sophisticated engineering terms, that's referred to as "Inertial Modulation." Also works well with vacuum tube electronics.