Fuel/Running problems? - Engine dies as soon as Drive is selected

C

colineverist

New Member
The car starts easily from cold & hot. However, after driving for two or three miles and having reached normal operating temperature, it starts coughing & spluttering, and all power disappears. It generally restarts but then will only tick over - as soon as I move into "Drive or "Reverse" all power vanishes and it stalls!
Once it is cool, it will run and drive normally but only for a very short time!

Tne condenser, points and coil are all recent replacements in an attempt to fix the problem! Could it be fuel pump related? Can anyone help?
 
Hello again,
another possibility is the fuel tank breather blocked (see if it does it with the fuel filler cap open) or debris in the fuel pipes from the tank causing temporary blackage (try pulling the reserve tap when symptoms occur)
Please advise results.
Regards, John.
 
Hi John

Thanks for your response. Will advise reults as soon as I have tested it. I'm a bit nervous of even taking it out at present, in case it breaks down again in an inconvenient place as it did last Thursday!!

Thanks again - will be in touch

Colin
 
Hi John

The odd thing is that it will nearly always tick over even when hot and once it has cooled down it is driveable again but only until it gets hot again! Very frustrating! A friend suggested that it could be a fuel pump problem with the pump just about capable of delivering enough fuel for tick over but failing to provide sufficient for any power when it also has to deal with too much heat. Does this make any sense?

Colin
 
Could possibly be coil, or even condenser, either breaking down can have this effect, one of our yorkshire members had a similar problem, he called the AA, then after it had stood a while it was ok, only to die again once on the move, turned out to be the coil.

Richard
 
Hello Colin,
yes, fuel pump sound very likely!
Hello Richard, Colin said that he had recently replaced most of the ignition items which is one reason why I went with the fuel thing, although it's not unknown for newly purchased items to be faulty of course!
Regards, John.
 
I had something similar and the cause was the pick up in the tank was blocked with something .It ran till the fuel in the carbs ran out .It was OK on the reserve setting .Cured by putting an airline on the fuel pipe where it enters the pump and blowing the foreign object away
When I was a lad and had an automatic Corsair 2000E it went through a phase of not having enough power to pull away in Drive - that was traced to a breaher pipe had split and was letting in air and weakening the mixture
Good luck
Dave
 
Check the fuel pipes where they exit under the boot to run under the car - On mine they had corroded and the pump was sucking air as well as fuel.

Cured by replacing the metal "elbows" and for safe bet adding an electric fuel pump as well
 
Too me it sounds like possible vapour locking in the fuel lines.Fuel gets to hot, evaporates in the line and the pump can't drag the bubble through.

I used to get this when sitting in traffic. It would take a while but if I couldn't get moving in time to get a bit of airflow to cool things down, it would stop on me and then I'd have to sit for maybe 15 minutes to let it clear. It didn't sems to matter if the engine was running hot or cold, more the heat coming off the exhaust.

I solved it by re-routing the fuel lines from betwen the sump and exhaust to the right hand side of the car and across the front member. Fitted an electic pump back at the tank at the same time.
 
Had this problem with the armorplated police car,then itwas found to be the fuel reserve tap half open/closed. it could also be dirt in the fuel line from the tank or the fuel pump ison the way out. hope you sort it soon, good luck.
 
Thanks to everybody who has responded - the car should be going to get looked at next Monday and hopefully with the help of all your suggestions it will get sorted! Thanks again - I will post a reply when I know the results!
 
Hi
- 15 months later and I now have an electric fuel pump fitted and the carbs have been serviced using a service kit.
Took the car for a five mile run and it ran beautifully - got home and left it on the sloping drive for ten minutes and then tried to restart the engine. Back to square one! It ran (tick over approx. 1000rpm) but as soon as drive was selected it stalled. Left it for two hours then tried again. All OK but a few coughs and splutters (the car, not me!) and I put it back in the garage. Now afraid to take it out in case it breaks down!

Is there any member in the East Sussex area who may be able to come and have a look at it for me or can recommend a mechanic who knows these cars, as I am getting desperate.

The workshop that did the fuel pump seem to think that the increased flow into the carbs combined with the car being parked on a slope was causing the carbs to flood (there was a smell of petrol).

Any ideas would be welcomed as I am running out of options!!
 
Hi Colin,
when you say the carbs have been serviced, were the float chambers serviced and set correctly?

I seem to remember having the same problem with an Austin 1800 automatic, which was my first car. What was happening was the float needle valve was leaking fuel into the carb, causing it to run way too rich on tickover. Dropping it into drive reduced the revs just enough to choke it to death, and stall!

Just a thought :)

Good Luck Sir.
 
hi all, seem to remember a similar problem i had with a 3500s that i owned about 20 years ago,it took me nearly two months to discover what the fault was,the car ran perfectly for 5-10 miles then die,(preceded buy a strong smell of petrol)once the engine had cooled down a bit it would fire up,.....everything that i could think of was either replaced or stripped and cleaned,...the petrol fumes led me to beleive that the engine was flooding, when i took the spark plugs out i found that they weren't sooty as you would expect,this made me think ??? ,..to cut a long story short i finally traced it to the inlet manifold water return pipe was blocked, (the little steel pipe that sits in the middle of manifold ) causing the fuel to evaporate in the manifold.......hope this helps and good luck
 
I don't know if this helps but I had a similar problem which turned out to be fuel vapourisation, as soon as it cooled off it went just as you said.
It transpired that I had a faulty temp sender and what I really had was an overheating problem which a new rad fixed.
DOC
 
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