Plus2S130/4 K missfire

PostPost by: plus2OK » Mon May 28, 2012 11:12 am

Hi, ex Plus2OK here now renamed as Paul2s

This problem is getting worse! A quick summation of history is as follows
Car plus2s130/4 fully rebuilt ( by somebody who knew what they were doing!) 2000 miles since rebuilt and 2 years . No problems ran perfectly , started on the button, very reliable
Until the last few months? ran out of petrol in garage , filled up, used car all day following day
On way home started to miss then died, could start but ran very rough AA got me home
Took advice ( as Plus2OK ) swapped coil, cleaned out AC pump got some crap out straw !
Car then started revved fine but on test drive started to miss again and die. After 5 mins it would start OK rev fairish but sufficient to get me home, tried several things but repeated exactly the same.
Put in new plugs, new 74 degree thermostat, plugs seemed blackish, checked air filter cleaned out crud
Then this morning, car started & revved OK as usual, put in 2 galls 97 octane plus lead additive
Took off webber tops plenty of petrol in tide mark looked to be ? inch from top of carbs ( where top fits on I could not see any gauze filters to check as Simon suggested
Took off dizzy cap making careful note of where leads went / numbered up No 1 nearest bulkhead
Checked leads for integrity at both ends, screw to coil in cap was a little loose so tightened
Close inspection of aluminium pegs showed what seemed to be deposits on pegs so cleaned off
Took off rotor arm inspected , seemed fine ?.. Went for tea?. Came back started car it fired but
Then remembered that cap was not on correctly refitted!! Put second clip on then CAR WOULD NOT START at all
Checked inside of distributor for damage non visible ( Luminition). Would not even try to fire
Checked plugs , could see spark and after cranking electrodes looked wet.
Battery now on trickle charge as flat
I am definatly going backwards?.. Please give me some ideas guys
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PostPost by: pauljones » Mon May 28, 2012 11:38 am

Just an idea,

Take of the carbs and get good access to the fuel pump,strip it down and give it a good clean,then the point of doing this is to blow an air line down the fuel line and clear it out. Im thinking with what you have said you may have debris in there.I took the same advice and it sorted out a few poor running issues simmilar to yours.I also got rid of the points and replaced it all with Aldon ignitor 2 module and matching coil,big blue leads and new dizzy cap.After this it worked a treat.As i have gone EFI now these are not being used,if you would like to borrow them then give me a PM.

Paul
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PostPost by: rgh0 » Mon May 28, 2012 11:48 am

The carb gauze filters are fitted where the fuel lines go into the carbs

cheers
Rohan
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PostPost by: kstrutt11 » Mon May 28, 2012 12:49 pm

I had a very similar experince on mine 3 years ago also after it ran low on fuel, basically debris collects in the right angle, bend in the fuel line at the base of the tank and restricts the fuel flow, in my case blowing back though the tank line with a air line cleared it and it's been fine since.

Kevin
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PostPost by: plus2OK » Mon May 28, 2012 1:34 pm

Paul & Kevin,
thanks you both seem to be of the same opinion, I think you must be correct. When the problem 1st occured it was after running out of fuel
I only got it started after I cleared some muck from the fuel pump, then the car was perfectly OK for 5 miles then it broke down in exactly the same manner as the 1st time . So now I am 99% sure a blockage Is the primary problem???.the trouble is?? this morning I must have buggered up something else because now it wont even fire! It was perfect before I got my hands on it? The bowls are full of fuel atm tell me if I?m wrong but even if there is a partial/ full blockage in the fuel line it should still start if the bowls are full? I have PM?d you Paul 1st time I have used that facility let me know if you got the message

Yeah Rohan !!! I found the filters OK , I was expecting flat ones, my last plus 2 12 years ago had delortos ,perhaps that where I got confused. Anyway the little tube jobbies were pretty clean with only just a trace of crud , thanks for that Oh boy I should be working but I am well fed up and can?t settle until I find out what I?ve done
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PostPost by: pauljones » Mon May 28, 2012 2:04 pm

Paul,

PM was good,Ill admit to being a techno clown myself.What ever happened to a quick phone call??

Paul
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PostPost by: plus2OK » Mon May 28, 2012 4:32 pm

Oh my Lord?? If you had done something really ,really,really stupid would you tell anyone?

anon......
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PostPost by: pauljones » Mon May 28, 2012 5:15 pm

Oh yes
Kick the tyres and light them fires...!!!!!!!
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PostPost by: plus2OK » Mon May 28, 2012 5:42 pm

Ok I?ll confess heres a clue
Took off dizzy cap making careful note of where leads went / numbered up No 1 nearest bulkhead ?.
Great except it should have been no 4 nearest bulkhead!!! I wasted all afternoon refusing to check the firing order because I had been sooooo
Careful.

Rearranged leads & she started 1st kick OK she revved freely and well, instant response to the throttle no jerky tacho once up to temperature I went for a spin
1st few miles drove like a dream then 4 miles in the acceleration stuttered between 3- 4000 revs then got progressively worse I limped home. With a mind to previous suggestions as soon as I stopped I began to take off one of the carb tops, starting with the banjo fuel lead, fuel under pressure came out, nipped up again. So I assume from that I do not have fuel starvation ( at least in one set of carbs) What next ? New leads and cap???
All advice greatfully accepted

Cheers Paul
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PostPost by: pauljones » Mon May 28, 2012 7:06 pm

Paul,

I'm thinking it's a heat related problem. Firstly you ran out of fuel,muck in the pump etc. As you have fuel in the bowls, id say a possibility is your carbs could need a clean out more so the jets and or pump. Reason being you may well be getting enough fuel for low heat/low loads.As heat increases more fuel is vaporised to the point it runs lean.so there by doesn't run properly.

Second, and again heat related. Failure of ignition components due to heat sink and increased resistance.

I hope these make sense as reasonable avenues to investigate.

I would personally start by swapping the electronic ignition to points just to have the peace of mind the ignition is as sorted as it could be and eliminate that factor
.then if you have the same fault strip the carbs off and clean out. Mine had a small hole in base of fuel bowl completely blocked.

I hope it helps and keeps another lotus on the road
Kick the tyres and light them fires...!!!!!!!
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PostPost by: plus2OK » Mon May 28, 2012 10:09 pm

Hi Paul, you may have a point on further inspection of the bowls this evening, there was a layer of
Brown gunge at the bottom. I think that I will swap the rotor and dizzy cap though as I don?t think that will be too expensive. Then if still the same I will try and blow through the fuel lines and clean the mech pump. From looking at Randys problems ( sea Ranch) I am still a little tempted by the coil breaking down when hot senario?. He spent ages and eventually discovered his new replacement coil was faulty , I will check with Paul Matty tmorrow ti check they sent me the correct one?.there were no markings on it. I am keen to use the old girl with the weather being so great. Plus I HAVE To get it running by August 4th as I am taking my daughter to her wedding in it!!!!
Your suggestions are appreciated

Cheers Paul
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PostPost by: Sea Ranch » Tue May 29, 2012 5:22 am

Greetings, Paul. You'll get there. :)

I'm in the "fuel camp" on this one. I think you could still be dealing with debris.

If it were mine, I would:
* deal with the fuel by removing and cleaning the pump and blowing the line backward to the tank (and whatever cleaning of the carbs you thought necessary)
* deal with the ignition by putting a strobe on the coil to distributor lead and on each of the spark plug leads, and spend enough time on each of these five to see (in the stobe light) the missing (if indeed there is an ignition fault) when the car is running poorly.

If, when the car starts to run rough, the problem is ignition, you should be able to see the erratic spark and find out exactly where it is; at least whether it's pre-distributor or in one or more spark leads. If, on the other hand, the strobe shows no evident spark problem when the car is running rough, then you can assume it's fuel related.

Please correct me, anyone, if I'm missing something! :mrgreen:

If my assumptions are correct, one would start with the strobe and test the ignition first, because that's loads easier than stripping and cleaning the fuel pump, etc. and allows you to at least eliminate ignition as a suspect.

Randy
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PostPost by: plus2OK » Tue May 29, 2012 10:22 am

Hi Randy,

thanks for the advice , it all makes sense.... I have however just ordered this morning from Paul Matty a set of leads & Caps to make up,
a new distributor cap and new rotor. Then we shall see . I think that I must clean out the system, no matter what as the crud in the pump set off this saga in
the 1st place and I can see a murky brown gunge at the bottom of the weber bowls.... but there was little debris in the carb filters. I could not help cross
examining the guy at PM re the coil he sent me, after reading your experiences part of my brain still thinks it is a coil problem. I asked if the coil
provided was compatible with a Luminition mark 12 he said he thought an ordinary 12 volt coil was needed.

Cheers Paul
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PostPost by: Sea Ranch » Tue May 29, 2012 9:53 pm

Thanks for the update, Paul.

Here's a secret: in my situation, it turned out the new coil I bought (so I could return the test coil borrowed from someone else in the process of troubleshooting the root cause of my gross misfiring problem) was not so much faulty as it was incompatible with my solid state ignition module. Replaced with a different version and got my car back to operation.

Perhaps you do have an "incompatibility" problem. But in my case, when I took off the properly-functioning loaner Bosch coil and put on the new coil I bought, the car immediately ran badly, period. Put the loaner Bosch back on, ran well. Took the new coil back to the store and tried a different impedance rating and the car ran well again.

Wish I could be more help. In any case, track your work. I like to do one thing at a time and eliminate potential causes.

You'll get there :mrgreen:

Randy
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PostPost by: kstrutt11 » Thu May 31, 2012 12:58 pm

I would not rule out fuel starvation yet, what tends to happen is when the engine fuel demand is low the pump can keep up and keep the carbs full, when you are at higher rpm and load it the restriction means it cannot and the fuel level in the carbs begins to drop, so it misfires under load but replenishes the carbs as you slow down and once you have stoped everything looks OK again.

Kevin
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