Petrol in vacuum advance unit

[davidsfirth]

Been having issues with starting the car. Turns out the distributor (which I believe to be the original one) gave up a few weeks ago. I think one of the tiny wires below the base plate to be at fault, as no power getting beyond the condenser. Any way, during my investigations, having got the dizzy off the car, petrol ran out of the vacuum advance. Is there a solution for this? Would fitting the 'brass bulb' arrangement between vacuum advance and carb (ESM part number Vac 101), often fitted to a bracket on one of the thermostat housing stud bolts i've seen on earlier cars (mine is a 1970 saloon) be wise? Was this fitted to earlier cars as a 'trap' to stop petrol getting near the dizziy? Why would they have been deleted from later cars if that was it's role?

[philthehill]

The bulb is a flame trap as it stops petrol getting to the distributer were it could ignite. The bulb must be installed in a vertical plane.
It was deleted as no problems were reported to BMC/BL and the risk was considered so low as not to warrant the fitting of the bulb in the vacuum advance pipe.
You could fit a bulb type flame trap as per original. There are no known problems with it being retro fitted.

[davidsfirth]

Thanks Phil. I'll get one ordered and installed.