Broken down on route to nationals :(

[Tea]

Hi all,

Heading along a dual carriage way when our car started to kangaroo - luckily we could pull into a farmers lane where the engine cut out all together.
Turned the key and we started fine, but turned off to check a few of our connections around our cut off switch as we'd knocked the the wires when pulling the bonnet release.
Anyway the car started fine and after a run up and down the lane decided it must have been a loose wire as a connection wasn't clipped in quite enough.
Got back upto 60mph and the same juddering/ kangaroo img started to pulled into a lay by. So far we have:
Checked the carbs piston which rises fine and falls with a clunk.
There is fuel in the float chamber and fuel coming from the pump - although there doesn't seem to be a good amount of ticking coming from fuel pump.
All the leads under the bonnet feel nice and tight in the connections.

After a few seconds off the car runs fine (better at slow speeds) for a few minutes then judders ad eventually stalls. Turn back on an fine again for a minute or 2.

We've managed to crawl the back roads to a friends farm so off the road and safe but would like to make it back to the Nationals.

We have a couple of morris' here with spare parts that we can borrow so any ideas on what it could be would be brilliant

[Tea]

One more thing: the vacuum advance pipe has a bit of tape around the connection at the carb end where there was a small crack. Although we've been running it like that for the last year with no problems, thought it's worth a mention.

[amgrave]

Have a look at the colour of the spark plugs, they should be a nice biscuit colour. If they look pale cream or white suspect the fuel pump from what you said in your description of the fault ie running weak. Another indication of running weak would be the engine seems to be a bit hotter than usual. Hope you get it sorted OK and make the event.

[Pikey]

Sounds to me like an overheating/failing condenser, change your condenser and or CB points at the same time?

Cheers

Steve

[LouiseM]

I was just about to suggest changing the condenser too - worth a try!

[Tea]

Will give that a go now.

We've emptied the fuel camber, cleaned up inside it as well, which was pretty clean already. When we turn the key the fuel pump very slowly and weakly clicks once every second or two.
Could that possibly mean it's not delivering enough fuel?

[amgrave]

I did say from your description it sound like the problem is stemming from the pump or perhaps the fuel supply to it

[Tea]

Sorry, amgrave - in my flap I didn't see your comment.

Will check the plugs now

[amgrave]

If you have emptied the fuel bowl on the carb the pump should tick away for at least five seconds quite fast to refill the bowl. If not it's as I stated earlier. Take the supply pipe to the pump off and see if you can easily blow down the pipe, if you can the problem is probably in the pump itself.

[dudload]

you back on the road yet?

[Tea]

The plugs look fine. When the pipe from the pump to the float chamber was disconnected it ticked away merrily. The lid of the float chamber seemed to be blocked so we changed that over from another car. We also blew the jets through. After a few miles near our friends it's driving fine, so we're going to head off on our way and hope for the best thanks for the help and suggestions and here's to hoping I don't need to post on this thread again!!

[amgrave]

Good to hear, well done. Have a nice weekend

[dudload]

whilst were at it, what is the procedure for checking the float chamber. I haven't had to do it yet, but better prepared I guess!

[dudload]

... And what it the purpose of the flap that looks like an old school can ringtail on the top?

[philthehill]

You mean this:-

[frame][/frame]

It is the cover over the float chamber vent.
Phil

[Tea]

To check if the lid (not sure if it has a more technical name??) of the float chamber for a blockage all we had to do was remove the fuel pipe, take off the 3 screws holding it to the chamber and blow through the tube connecting the pipe. You should be able to blow through without any problem - just make sure the needle isn't sitting is its 'closed' position.
We also emptied the chamber of petrol and used an air compressor to blow through the jets by sticking a tube in the hole at the base of the chamber. I'm sure you could manually blow through with a small bit of piping.

We just got back from the rally and had no further problems