Morris Minor Owners Club

Took a look under bonnet after car would not start. Discovered this thin metal pipe not connected to the carb. Pushed the metal pipe into a fiberous tube attached to the carb and car started. What is the pipe and its purpose and is it unusual for it to come apart ?

Difficult to guess without seeing it, but if it's the fuel line, that would explain the car not starting. Was there a smell of petrol?

if the other end went eventually to the distributor then its the vacuum advance although I doubt that the car would fail to start with it disconnected. Might run rough but it would probably start.

pic would help

I really was expecting a photo, seeing as the significant majority of the population have a phone camera.....

Not a lot of choice with it being a Pipe to the carb, the first thought is it's an engine with a solid vacuum advance, but not starting?
The mixture would have been a bit lean, but I suppose if the car is already running lean then that might do it.....

I'd like to think any car owner can recognise the fuel line and quite frankly, if it were the fuel line, having been trying to start it, the fuel pump should have sent a good amount of fuel around the engine bay....

Does the pipe run around the front (or rear) of the Rocker Cover and connect to the distributor?

See this link to a photo on the Forum showing a thin copper colour pipe...
http://mmoc.org.uk/mbimage.php?src=1302781663_7424
It's the Vacuum Advance... and you might want to think about giving the car a bit of a tune up, plugs, etc.

Sounds like a fuel trap to me. Has it got a small cylindrical component inline ?

Is it one of these we are talking about? These can end up very bent out of shape and untidy after all these years. Hence why people replace them.
I have had a couple of VW polo (the mark 2 'breadvan' version) in the past, these had a rubber vacume hose concealed under the air filter. As they were getting older they had a tendency to split, when they did the car wouldn't start. Once I'd replaced them they ran fine again.
So this can cause a vehicle not to start and I have seen quite a few of the metal vacume hoses replaced by rubber or plastic pipes.
The plastic replacements look like this: You can get original versions (link below) but it depends of how much you are concerned with originality when it comes to an item like this.
Best wishes,
Mike.
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