Outer Limits 4x4 Board

So a mate got his boyhood dream of a sierra ute last night.

we looked at a few and this one seemed awsome, bought it and then on the drive home it all went down hill.

Background:
1987 Sierra
1.6 corolla carbie engine swap
started and drove perfectly during test drive.


Symptoms:
I had noticed that the alternator was not coping with load, i.e with lights and stuff on it would drop to 10 volts on the aftermarket guage.
no lights etc it would register 13 volts.

At first this seemed to be the issue. the car would be ok for a while then start to lose power like it didnt have power to spark.

but then the engine would crank over off its own battery - so if the battery has the grunt to turn it over it wasnt lack of power unless a poor connection somwhere.

eventually we ended up on the side of the road engine struggling to stay alive and it will only run if accellerator is contantly pumped. would not idle and would not rev above 3000 rpm.

It had been intermittent this fault, we would get anywhere from 500m to 5km between its little spastic interludes.

so ive ruled out engine fault. these dont seem to be intermittent.

i have a list in my head which i would love some advice on as i havet worked on carbie sets ups for some time.

power system:
*points was my first thought - but dont even know if it has them yet - too dark.
*bad earth or something? but the starter earths ok.
*ht leads.
*connection between battery and dizzy not great and alt not supplying enought to run it???


fuel system - but i doubt this as it on runs when you pump as much fuel as you can.
*blocked fuel filter
*crap in carbie



Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


Oh and my hilux ran perfectly the whole way home, even when towing his new pride and joy.

Have you given the battery a serious charge overnight, then tried again?

I killed an alternator in an Isuzu with mud/water, and drove home on a series of jump starts. It acted fricking funny, not in a consistent way, as the battery got more and more flat.

I can't explain the voltage issues if the car still cranks OK. (I presume it has only one battery?)

eventually we ended up on the side of the road engine struggling to stay alive and it will only run if accellerator is contantly pumped. would not idle and would not rev above 3000 rpm.

This sounds like a leaking gasket in the intake - air being sucked in NOT through the carby, so the mixture is too lean. Pumping the accelerator adds extra fuel via the pump jets. The gap is probably opening as things get hot, then closes again as it cools. Remove carby & inlet manifold, clean all surfaces, check for straight/flat, reassemble with new gaskets. I use gasket silicon on gaskets these days - I reckon proper gasket goo is too hard to clean up when you next replace gaskets.

Some of those symptoms sound similar to those I had in my Zook at one stage? (1.3L carby though)

Thread below:

http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/ftopic178976

Had a mates car do an identical thing. Ended up being the pick up in the tank was blocked. We just pulled the fuel line off and pushed compressed air back through the tank and all was good from then on.

dont discount it being the carbie or fuel system. sounds l;ike a fuel issue

some carbies have a seperate pump/jet system so when you push the throttle down, it squirts in a seperate jet of fuel to help with initial acceleration
I had a holden that I regularly ran out of fuel as a teenager, there was more then once I managed to get it to servos by keeping it running using the "pump" when it was starting to stall from lack of fuel getting through

check for crap in fuel filter, carbie, tank pick up etc, blocked jets

SIMMO84 wrote:Had a mates car do an identical thing. Ended up being the pick up in the tank was blocked. We just pulled the fuel line off and pushed compressed air back through the tank and all was good from then on.

All sorted now bought a new fuel filter and blew compressed air down the pickup. Seems to be working fine now. Still has some electrical gremlins but at least it drives fine. Now I can start working on some mods. Thanks for the help.