Outer Limits 4x4 Board

The weirdest thing happened tonight.

Well I was driving home from work and noticed some slight deceleration when leaving my foot steady on the accelerator pedal.

Anyway I got in the car to go to my mates house to talk about the issue with the car among other things.

Anyway, by this stage the zook would stall if you held the pedal steady. The only way to avoid it was pump it to get it going and then thrash it. Obviously fuel starvation, a blockage in the main jet.

Well I got round to his house (he lives about 300 or 400 m away) and we managed to unblock it. But then it decided not to idle.

After several hours of playing with the idle speed, fuel/air mixture and various hoses and the odd solenoid and switch we just gave up. We managed to get it to idle with some settings but it would stall as soon as the main jet kicked in and you tried to let it idle again.

I drove it home and lo and behold. The damn thing was idling fine.

I drove it straight back to my mates house and all we could do was laugh.

I'm still not entirely sure what's wrong with it other than it still has a carby issue of some form or another, unless it fixed itself... next step is putting another fuel filter after the fuel pump as it's had the odd blockage even with a new filter. Then just see how it goes.

Sounds like a little bit of water in the fuel mix. Ive had something similar.

either water in fuel ......OR crap in the float bowel !!
moves around & blocks idle jet !!!!

Or vapour lock in tank, poor/blocked breather.
Long fast runs can discover this issue.

Try the "poor mans fuel system flush".

Take the air filter off, block the air inlet with piece of clean flat wood (MDF is ideal), or your hand if you're game, and turn the engine over a couple of revs with the starter. That will usually clear blocked jets.

Take the fuel filter off and blow compressed air back up the filter, tap it on the bench to loosen even more dirt, get a teaspoon of fuel and slosh it around the supply side (tank end) of the filter to remove the crap.

Later...

If it is an old car look at getting the fuel sys rubbers changed. Drain the crap out of you tank (usually a drain plug somewhere).

Install two fuel filters, first one an el-cheepo at the tank end, second an EFI filter as close to the carbie as possible. Reason for specifically EFI filter is that they have much better filtering (down to microns in size). This lets the el-cheepo do most of the work, but guarantees clean fuel at the carbie. Also means you will never be caught out with a dodgy filter, as if one clags it, you can bypass it and still have the other filter in cct.

Check your fuel filter. I think, from memory, there's one down the back near the tank?

I had very similar probs with mine, kept getting progressively worse...found the filter was full of water.

I replaced my fuel filter a couple of months back. So I am doubtful that's causing problems.

I put an in line filter after the fuel pump as well as new fuel hose between the pump and the carby just today on a suggestion from my mate last night and I've heard a few guys on here mention it before.

Still no luck though, it makes a half assed attempt then dies.

It's odd though as it can idle with the right settings. It just dies after you touch the accelerator. When playing around with it at my mates we also got it to where it would idle for about 5 seconds and then unexpectedly stall.