Morris Minor Owners Club

Is my fuel pump bad?...1971 Traveller....idles fine ! When I go to drive it ... it sputters then quits... turn key after awhile starts up BUT when I start to drive it doesn’t want to stay running.... seems pump might not be keeping up with engine needs?
Help....

Test the fuel pump by removing the fuel pipe from the carburettor, place the end of the pipe in a suitable container (bottle etc) and turn on the ignition. The pump should pump a stream of petrol into the container. Obviously only do this test with the engine cold.

It’s never the coil

This was said to me a long time ago when I first joined the forum
There is some history behind the quote
Perhaps some of the veterans will advise

One-time massive contributor to this forum, 'bmcecosse', always repeated 'its never the coil!' to those poor souls who randomly changed the coil when they had starting/running problems. You could say it was his watchword. But he was refering to old, 'proper job' coils - not some of the more recently made ones, many of which have proved to have been unreliable. His other caveat was that it may well be the coil connections that are causing the problem.
I suspect he may well have been right - my coil is ancient and served me well for over 30 years..........that is how long I have had it, but it is even older than that!

I have only ever buggered one coil and that’s when I left the ignition on and didn’t realise for 2 days and unfortunately the points must have been closed
On the bright side it did prove I had a good battery ..

yes a sad loss to the forum,never has been the same,however I once suggested that this catch phrase should be its never the coil but sometimes it .But he was correct, old coils lasted the life of the car,new ones are very unreliable.

So - back to the OP....did you carry out the pump test as described? It should pump roughly a pint a minute.

I had very similar symptoms recently and a quick clean and gap check of the points in the fuel pump solved it entirely.

Thank you for the suggestion... I will definitely check the points

Noo! First check for a good spark at the plugs, immediately the engine stops. THAT will determine whether the fault is ignition or other. THEN make a considered decision on the next move!

jbtuba90 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 15, 2020 11:35 am Thank you for the suggestion... I will definitely check the points

And - did you check to see if the pump is pumping a pint of fuel a minute? There's no point in messing about with the pump points if it is working OK! You might even cause more problems........

My Trav with similar symptom was the king lead into the coil had worked its way out and just good enough contact for idle. Easy first check!