uk66fastback
Club Member
Hi, I've put a welcome thread in the relevant section ... my car is nice enough but I've now had some time to honestly look at it and it is running like a pig. When the guy took it off the flatbed I thought it didn't sound that healthy - but it kinda sounded like it had a bark from the exhaust and it had been standing for a month on a boat etc so I put it down to that.
Have had some time now to have a look and it is difficult, nigh on impossible to start ... when it does, it just seems to run as though it is on about two cylinders. I started it yesterday and it runs at about 600rpm, then without my foot on the throttle, it'll buzz up to 2000rpm, making quite a noise. then I can blip it and it'll come back down to 600rpm, nearly stall, then go up again etc. I can control the revs by placing my palms over the air intakes. The car won't start at all with the air cleaner ON.
What I know:
Everything is original so I have been told - block, tranny etc - numbers match. I have cleaned and gapped the points. The dizzy looks original. The plugs are clean and gapped correctly. The coil looks old but I have no idea HOW old. The leads all have 1 9 7 2 printed on them in white - so they're original if that's what they had ...
They guy said the engine had never been worked on - maybe that's the trouble - mind you, he is 85 so how much is right or wrong with his fading memory I don't know. Car has only done 3000 miles or so in the last 20 years. 82k in total. The tyres are 20 years old and the spare is the unused original. Tools have never left the cubby hole by the looks of it.
Having read up on the net and various forums about the SU carbs, I thought I'd give them a clean so removed them at the weekend. Read up on SU adjustment - not in the ZTherapy league of course but just the basics. Read about the jet adjustment with the two full turns etc - but when I removed the carbs, they had no adjustment on them underneath? (see pics) One of the jets was low in the carb body, see pics, but I pressed it up from underneath and it is now where the other one is.
Anyway I cleaned up the carbs and put them in and nothing improved but at least you could eat your dinner off them!
Anyone ever seen US '72 carbs like them before with no jet adjustment - I snapped a pic of the serial code on the end of them - and that does translate I believe to a '72 SU/Hitachi carb.
So to recap. Points - fine, plugs, fine, coil - ? (I have a spark - leads - they work but could be breaking down? Timing - no idea?
If you've got this far, thanks for reading - and here's a clip of it I have uploaded to YouTube, which will show what is happening. The frantic tooing and froing of the throttle mechanism in the engine bay is my right foot trying to keep the thing running ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvL-_0R7d4c
[YOUTUBE]fvL-_0R7d4c[/YOUTUBE]
Have had some time now to have a look and it is difficult, nigh on impossible to start ... when it does, it just seems to run as though it is on about two cylinders. I started it yesterday and it runs at about 600rpm, then without my foot on the throttle, it'll buzz up to 2000rpm, making quite a noise. then I can blip it and it'll come back down to 600rpm, nearly stall, then go up again etc. I can control the revs by placing my palms over the air intakes. The car won't start at all with the air cleaner ON.
What I know:
Everything is original so I have been told - block, tranny etc - numbers match. I have cleaned and gapped the points. The dizzy looks original. The plugs are clean and gapped correctly. The coil looks old but I have no idea HOW old. The leads all have 1 9 7 2 printed on them in white - so they're original if that's what they had ...
They guy said the engine had never been worked on - maybe that's the trouble - mind you, he is 85 so how much is right or wrong with his fading memory I don't know. Car has only done 3000 miles or so in the last 20 years. 82k in total. The tyres are 20 years old and the spare is the unused original. Tools have never left the cubby hole by the looks of it.
Having read up on the net and various forums about the SU carbs, I thought I'd give them a clean so removed them at the weekend. Read up on SU adjustment - not in the ZTherapy league of course but just the basics. Read about the jet adjustment with the two full turns etc - but when I removed the carbs, they had no adjustment on them underneath? (see pics) One of the jets was low in the carb body, see pics, but I pressed it up from underneath and it is now where the other one is.
Anyway I cleaned up the carbs and put them in and nothing improved but at least you could eat your dinner off them!
Anyone ever seen US '72 carbs like them before with no jet adjustment - I snapped a pic of the serial code on the end of them - and that does translate I believe to a '72 SU/Hitachi carb.
So to recap. Points - fine, plugs, fine, coil - ? (I have a spark - leads - they work but could be breaking down? Timing - no idea?
If you've got this far, thanks for reading - and here's a clip of it I have uploaded to YouTube, which will show what is happening. The frantic tooing and froing of the throttle mechanism in the engine bay is my right foot trying to keep the thing running ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvL-_0R7d4c
[YOUTUBE]fvL-_0R7d4c[/YOUTUBE]
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