I'm now onto Colin340's red 1.7 (1988) which has a Weber 32 DRT carburettor. Last year it got a sudden cutting-out issue on the way to its MOT which the garage spent a lot of time on, by rebuilding the carburettor, etc. They eventually sorted it out just before the lockdown by fitting a non-return valve, as shown, and I've not done anything to the car since, except recharge the battery. I don't know the system well enough to judge, but there would seem to be some issues with the way they left it, not least the full force of the fuel pump going into the carb without a jubilee clip on the hose and without any return to the tank. The vapour separator (which I gather normally splits the fuel from the pump between going to the carb or back to the tank) seems to be doing abso nothing right now. I would like to get it back to the original system and then sort out what was really causing the cutting out. Seems right for a plan?





What I really, really need is a picture showing how the two pipes at the top of the separator should be connected.



The thread here gives a lot of great advice. I guess the fuel pipe from the pump should go into the bottom of the separator and the pipe still connected to the outermost port at the top of the separator goes back to the tank, so by elimination, the central connector should go the the carb, but I would live to get confirmation!!

Apologies, the hose-routing question has already been answered by the MACmeister before, sorry.



I'm going to check the fuel filter in the tank and hoses around the overflow tank in case they are connected wrongly - they were all removed by the welders perhaps causing a sucking back effect or something.

Just realised the 360 has the same thing, but different, on the side of the block.

Sounds like some good work and sussing out of the issues.
I was surprised my 360's fuel hoses had no pipe clamps fitted, just the hoses pushed on the fuel rail and filter outlet etc. I replaced these with new hose and fitted proper pipe clips. I had a small spraying leak at the fuel filter joint after I replaced the FPR which caused a bit of panic, had to anneal the copper washer to get it sealed up. I give the under bonnet fuel pipework a quick check before almost every trip out, its usually up for one reason or another

Glad you sorted it. It changed on later B172s to a 3 port fuel pump (feed, return, carb) so if you ever need a replacement be sure to get the correct one!

Thanks both for looking at this and your kind words. I would not say that I have sorted it yet because it was at the garage from Sept till March while the experts were trying to sort the stalling problem, on a back-burner. I am sure we can get it back to the standard setup and then find what is really making it stall, chuckle (famous last words). Today's progress and plans are below and what I need to know about is that there is a step-down in pipe diameter going from the pump to the vapour separator and then a step-up in hose width going from the separator to the carburettor, which has a massive brass inlet pipe. The carb is a Weber 32 DRT which is unusual for a 340, I think, but more usual for Renault 5? Maybe its not ideal, but it was reliable enough for the previous owner, and went like a rocket, or at least it did when I brought it back from Wales. I would be interested to know if the standard carb setup with the vapour separator involved the final step-up in pipe diameter going from separator to carb. I vaguely remember the garage saying they thought the carb was not getting enough fuel and that is probably why they bypassed the vapour separator. Anyway, it got enough fuel coming back from Wales with the old setup, so I doubt if that was the problem!!




Fuel hoses without clips seems very odd because Volvo always used them, afaik. The garage originally suspected the fuel pump and ordered one from their supplier, but it was the wrong sort with three hose connections rather than two, so they asked me to get the right one from ebay (and then crushed the connections on it). They are pretty limited in their ability to get older-car parts because they only have account facilities with a few suppliers. Indeed, they asked me a couple of times to get a jerry-can of petrol for the car while they were working on it. Yes, a garage asking me to get petrol for them - soon to be an older-car 'part', too.


Talking of which, do the Telsa jobbies need servicing ;-? Someone told me that ordering parts had to be done by the owner with an app and took about 9 months.

OK, so today I put the connection in between the separator and the carby. After curing a couple of leaks, it seems OK!



What was clear from one of the leaks is that despite all the steps-down and steps-up in hose diameter, there is still a whumping great pressure going into the carbie, so lack of fuel can't really be an issue, arf!

Another of my fishy stories about how crap professionals are and how brilliant amateurs are (not). Anyhow, the picture below showing the top of the fuel tank sender unit, perhaps speaks for itself. Actually, I learnt something completely trivial the other day which is quite interesting. Have you ever wondered what the ¬ symbol is at the top left-hand corner of your keyboard, just below ESC? Its a symbol used in logic to mean 'not', along with lots of P's and Q's, which is where the phrase "Mind your P's and Q's" comes from! Of course, two nots cancel out, e.g. this car is ¬ ¬ red.



Just like the top of the sender unit above is ¬ white but now its ¬ ¬ white, hah!



To be honest it is slightly grey where I rubbed in some Oyltite because there were some cracks at the connection to the hose from the pump. There is also a distinct lack of a filter on this fuel sender, but I read that is OK because it gets blocked easily so as long as we put a filter where the non-return valve is, we will be OK (ffffmmmffff).



Coolio, so we put it back together with a dodgy metal hose-clip.



Now, pop in a new-looking fuel filter where the non-return valve was (looked like metal but it turned out to be chromed plastic).



Curses, it starts!! Petrol can be seen bubbling merrily through the filter as the engine idles away.


https://streamable.com/zmqla8

OK, so we've undone everything the garage did to it over the 6 months it was in their possession and now we need to cautiously test it to see if the stalling problem recurs. However, that could be interesting as the MOT ran out 6 weeks ago, arf, and the rear brakes are binding due to lack of use in the lockdown!!

Anyway, what I need to do now is to check the connections around the petrol filler and overflow tank because I have this idea, probably wrongly, that if something was connected wrongly there, it might cause the sucking-back effect which the garage referred to. Removing the trim panels inside the boot will also allow me to finish painting the floor. When that's done, I'll be onto the rear brakes. Finally, another achievement today - someone dumped a great-looking cupboard by the dustbins at the garage, so I've got a new storage accessory for the Ness-cave.



Actually, I put it where I had to clean up rat-pooh which appeared during the lockdown when the poor critters raided about 5 year's worth of rubbish bags at the back, but they are all God's creatures. They got in where someone broke the ventilation brick you can see on the right.

OK, so lot more to ponder today. One thing that has been niggling my mind is that when I looked at the carbie, there was a cam that was wobbling about like a see-saw (green arrows) with nothing obvious connected to it. Hence a call to the MACmeister was needed to focus my thoughts and I am thinking that there is a spring which should be hooked over the cam which isn't. Unfortunately, I can't tell from the photo below but I will check in the daylight tomorrow. There is also a nut missing from the bottom of the float chamber vent valve plunger!



Back to the fuel tank, I wanted to check the connections to the overflow tank so the rear side panels were removed, revealing the part of the floor that needs a coat of paint, even though no one would normally ever see it!



Regarding the overflow tank, a few more more cable-ties doubling as hose-clips were to be found as shown below.



These will be replaced asap, but I have run out of little ones for the moment. I also found a little valve which the Hades manual calls a check valve and indicates how it should be clipped to the side of the overflow tank. It currently is upside-down - which will also be rectified asap.

Now its time to exalt the incompetence of amateurs. I was wrong. The spring on the cam is connected correctly at the invisible end, as shown below, so the mystery as to what this thing does deepens further.



Meanwhile, a bit of work is done with the cable-ties on the overflow tank hoses, which are replaced and the check valve is fitted the right way up.



To my eternal shame, yet again, I wanted to give the black sound-deadening patches left by the welders a bit of red paint so that they would merge in a bit better with their surroundings, colourwise. However, I did not fancy getting into the realm of interior spray-painting, given that I could end-up with overspray in horrific places like the headlining, seat belts and cushion covers, etc. So you may curse me forever more, but I gave it a quick brush-over with B&Q Strawberry one-coat gloss *tremble* !!





Kindly remember, this will never normally be seen, except by the odd MOT inspector testing the rear seat belts or something, by which time it will probably be camouflaged with a fair amount of dust!

OK, so its a bit of a race against the clockdown, but what I want to achieve in the next few days is: refit as much of the rear trim as possible, remove the rear offside side light for repairs since this has been quite badly cracked during the the car's sorjourn (or should that be sourjourn) with the garage (I don't think it was me !?!?), try to get a little locknut for the float chamber vent valve plunger, check the handbrake is off on Deep Blue, to be continued.

Yo! Some progress to report today. An email link from the MACmeister to a video showing the correct operation of the plunger on the side of the carbie allowed me to see what needed doing. I had to take the top off to see what was going on fully and it became failry clear that an adjustment of the nylon nut at the base of the plunger was about the only thing that could be done. Fortunately, this worked.




The plunger now moves up and down with the throttle, as can be seen here and the engine seems to run abso fine, with a bit more torque at idle.

I also had the chance to replace one of my dodgy new hoses.



My strawberry gloss is still a bit tacky so the boot work can wait a bit longer.

In the last available pre-lockdown day, I checked the garages were OK, stowed a few bits carefully inside the car, removed the sidelight for repairs over the coming days, wished someone I know a merry christmas and refitted the air filter housing at the front. It seems to run OK, as can be seen epically here, although perhaps a bit rattly.

I also found and consumed a can of Scrumpy Jack, left over from the last lockdown, to celebrate the onset of the new one. I then spent some time hunting for the slow-setting glue I intend to use for the sidelight repair, which involved stumbling about in the shed half-drunk in the dark with the neighbour's fireworks going off over my head, looking for Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure.

Great news, glad it's running again. I should have some carb related posting to do in the next week or so too

Bit of very dilute black Humbrol enamel has toned-down the red of the boot floor.



Car started and ran fine.

Maybe a second coat has overdone it?






Talking of over-doing it, has anyone ever heard of a 340/360 with over-drive!??! Showing my age here. I can just see a 'What's overdrive?' coming up... but is it even possible with gearbox at the back?? How would you do it?? I like the idea of 10 gears!!

Hmmmm, well, I think it's not too bad now....