Series 3 petrol won't start

Europa486 said:

That’s crap, I have been in the motor trade 50 years and never once had a blowback fire wise of any significant,
Every time you press the throttle down you are injecting a squirt of petrol,

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Balls. Car traders know nothing.

I have seen it happen, both with petrol engines, and diesel, where pouring petrol down the intake and lighting it used to be a common trick to start old engines on cold mornings.

One day, I nearly destroyed a massive chipper with dedicated Ford engine, when a squirt of burning fuel fell into the chippings around the machine, which were soaked with old engine oil.
We hitched it to the back of the tractor, and got it out while the flames rose around it.

Turboman said:

Balls. Car traders know nothing.

I have seen it happen, both with petrol engines, and diesel, where pouring petrol down the intake and lighting it used to be a common trick to start old engines on cold mornings.

One day, I nearly destroyed a massive chipper with dedicated Ford engine, when a squirt of burning fuel fell into the chippings around the machine, which were soaked with old engine oil.
We hitched it to the back of the tractor, and got it out while the flames rose around it.

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Older Ford cars were renown for setting their air filters on fire ....

Dippypud said:

Older Ford cars were renown for setting their air filters on fire ....

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Yes. And Series Landrovers are well known for electrical leakage under the bonnet, causing small sparks, which like petrol vapour. Whoomf!!

First off I am not a car trader, I am a engineer, secondly to duplicate fuel in the carb a capful of fuel down the Venturi is not a cap full thrown over the engine,
If and it’s a big If you had a blowback the worse that can happen is a small amount of flame from the top of the carb,
Continue cranking and it will be drawn into the engine with no harmful effects,
As far as diesel cold starting, in the old days a piece of rag on a bit of wire was dipped into diesel lighted and held over the inlet manifold while the engine was being cranked over, this is to heat the inlet air much the same as heaters on the current Diesel engines,

Europa486 said:

I am a engineer,

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Civil, Mechanical, Electrical or Production? And where is your engineering degree from?

Mechanical and served my apprenticeship at kennings in Acton in the 1960s main BMC dealer at the time
For your information I am not going to get into a ****ing contest,

Europa486 said:

Mechanical and served my apprenticeship at kennings in Acton in the 1960s main BMC dealer at the time
For your information I am going to get into a ****ing contest,

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Remember Kennings pretty well, Mother used to hire cars from there when we first came to England. Only a few broke down.

But doing an apprenticeship at Kennings doesn't make you an engineer. It might make you a mechanic, or a technician, or a fitter.
An engineer has an engineering degree, which is why they are a chartered engineer.

Not quite sure what sort of contest you are going to get into, one thing I do know is, if it is with me, you won't win.

Colthebrummie said:

I don't know if I'm going senile or what but I can't get Compo to start. It's been parked up for about 4 weeks and it was fine last time I used it. I've had the battery out and on charge but now Ive put it back it refuses to fire. It turns over a treat but won't fire so I checked for a spark, nothing, changed the lead, nothing, changed the coil, nothing. A year or two back I replaced the points with an electronic module, so my suspicions rested on that. At least with the old points they would let you know when there was a problem but I imagine an electronic module just fails without warning so I thought about buying a new one but for the extra cost I decided to buy a whole new electronic distributer instead. I've just fitted it and the b@stard still won't start. There is now a faint spark at the plug, not very impressive at all but even a weak spark should make it want to start. I've removed the air filter and dribbled some petrol down the throat of the carb but still nothing. There is petrol visible in the fuel filter. I know the timing will be a bit out but not enough to make it not at least cough. What else is there to try other than stripping the carb. Carbs just don't stop working when they have been perfectly good. 40 odd years of tinkering and this makes me feel like an idiot. Help!

Col

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Coll,
which electronic dizzy did you buy?

Simon

My Perkins has a flame starter, as soon as the engine starts it sucks the flames back into the engine. Works a treat. I'm a big fan of pouring fuel in carbs, only time I've set my self on fire was using WD40 in the rain on a running engine - and yes it does say don't do that on the can. But it was only on 3 cylinders (a 6) and if it stopped it would probably not start and it was dark and in the middle of nowhere. It was a car with the grill on the bonnet so I bashed my head a treat when I jumped back.

Simon Perks said:

Coll,
which electronic dizzy did you buy?

Simon

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It's an Accuspark distributer, it's supposed to have a variable dwell angle for better ignition across the Rev range, although I'm not sure that will be noticeable on a 40 odd year old landy. It cost £63, whereas the basic ignition module to replace the old points was about £35, so for an extra £28 I get a brand new distributer.

Col

Hi Coll, you have inadvertently caused a bit of an uproar.
I just scanned through a bit of it and it's all over the place.
! - Have you connected a spare spark plug to the HT lead for No 1 cylinder cranked and confirmed consistent spark. If not work backwards. Leads . Cap. Rotor Arm
Points ( watch for points stuck open) Coil then LV supply.
Not advisable to have any open cylinder or fuel source for this( My Mate 'arry burnt his eyebrows off when the piston stroke blew fuel onto the sparking plug).
2 - Have spark, then check timing. If both good, Then check all cylinder compressions. No obscure fault, like snapped camshaft or stuck valves.
3 -This then only leaves fuel.
The trick with fault finding is to find out what is okay. Then the fault will be revealed.
Mike

mike rodent said:

Hi Coll, you have inadvertently caused a bit of an uproar.
I just scanned through a bit of it and it's all over the place.
! - Have you connected a spare spark plug to the HT lead for No 1 cylinder cranked and confirmed consistent spark. If not work backwards. Leads . Cap. Rotor Arm
Points ( watch for points stuck open) Coil then LV supply.
Not advisable to have any open cylinder or fuel source for this( My Mate 'arry burnt his eyebrows off when the piston stroke blew fuel onto the sparking plug).
2 - Have spark, then check timing. If both good, Then check all cylinder compressions. No obscure fault, like snapped camshaft or stuck valves.
3 -This then only leaves fuel.
The trick with fault finding is to find out what is okay. Then the fault will be revealed.
Mike

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Hi Mike, Ive got it started now but the initial problem was all a bit confusing. The engine worked fine when I parked it, after about 4 or 5 weeks of it being parked with the battery off and on charge, it would not start despite the starter spinning the engine really well. My first test was for a spark at No 1 cylinder using a spare plug. I couldn't see a spark so I suspected an electrical fault, I changed everything including the coil, leads and eventually the electronic ignition module was swapped for an electronic distributer with another new cap and rotor arm. Still would not start but at least there was now a spark. There was petrol visible in the fuel filter which is close to the carb so Imagined the fuel supply was good to the carb. I tried putting a little petrol into the throat of the carb but it still wouldn't start or even try. I was on the verge of removing the carb for a strip down. I removed the fuel line from the carb so that I could pump a bit more fuel into a jar but when I turned the engine over, no fuel was pumped through. I knew there was more than a quarter of a tank of petrol in it when last used and the fuel guage was showing fuel. I have two tanks, when I switched the supply to the front tank, fuel came through and the engine ran ok. There was no fuel in the rear tank, I think someone syphoned it. It is odd though why it wouldn't start when I put petrol straight into the carb, also, even if there was no petrol in the tank, there should have been some in the float chamber of the carb. I think the reason I couldn't get a spark on my original test was because I didn't give it a good enough earth. The fuel guage shows some some even when the tank is empty but I didn't realise this because I've never had an empty tank before, I tend to top it up when it gets down to a quarter of a tank. Lessons learnt are, don't assume fuel is there just because the guage says so and be more thorough when testing for a spark.

Col

Turboman said:

Remember Kennings pretty well, Mother used to hire cars from there when we first came to England. Only a few broke down.

But doing an apprenticeship at Kennings doesn't make you an engineer. It might make you a mechanic, or a technician, or a fitter.
An engineer has an engineering degree, which is why they are a chartered engineer.

Not quite sure what sort of contest you are going to get into, one thing I do know is, if it is with me, you won't win.

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Not quite right, a degree makes you an engineer, but you then have to progress through the chartership process to become a chartered engineer.

Well off topic, but I've been unhappy with the positioning of apprenticeships and degrees in opposition. I did an apprenticeship (4 years) City&Guilds, an engineering degree and then became a Chartered Engineer, looking at what I use now (as a management consultant) it comes from all these things in equal measure. The apprenticeship was a long time ago but it’s still relevant today, in some ways more so because it had so much practical content and I now go into schools advocating apprenticeships as a viable alternative to degrees (with a lot less dept). But, there are some things that are so complicated they will always need a lot of study and professional practice and the point about being Chartered is that it’s a quality stamp, fall below the standard and it can be taken away.

Mingus said:

i once couldn't get a series 2a petrol started for hours until i noticed i'd disconnected the fuel cut off switch...doh!

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I got angry and panicked when it wouldn’t start on the handle or my push button starter in the engine bay. Then realised I hadn’t turned the ignition on...