Running problems and carb farts…

On the Saturday (8th April) I fitted a battery to use the fuel pump to suck fresh clean fuel from a fuel can to flush through the pipes, electric pump and in-line filter into a jar. The first wave of fuel was quite dirty, the second was cleaner and then the third batch was better still. The fuel wasn’t wasted – it went straight in to the lawnmower. The original battery was fitted – as the one I initially used didn’t have enough charge to turn the starter over properly. This one eventually fired the engine to life, after a few sluggish turn overs and then ran using fuel from the fuel can still sited on a wooden block at the other end of the car. After being satisfied with the car starting and running for a few minutes it was shut down and then the refurbished fuel tank was refitted with the remnants of the fuel can put in the tank.

On the Sunday a gallon (5 litres) of Tesco Momentum fuel was added – have been “Internet” informed it doesn’t contain ethanol, which can harm old fuel lines and components. With the help of my son, the brakes were re-bled (the system had a slight leak last summer and the reservoir became empty) and another fire up loomed with a test drive.

The test drive was down an access road to a car park, just across the road from my driveway, but it didn’t go to plan and the Corsair cut out as I was about to manouevre the car around at the bottom of the car park to come back! Then the Corsair wouldn’t start, not enough battery juice, at which point my son had been sent down to investigate as my wife couldn’t hear the Corsair’s engine running. We managed to push the car out of the way in the car park and then I jogged back to get the jump leads and the Passat.

The Corsair started fine but would only run for about a minute – so adjustment to the mixture screw enabled the engine to run without dying so quickly but with a fair bit of popping through the carburetor under load or acceleration. At least I could keep it going and drive the Corsair back into it’s garage. Disaster averted, but I’m none the wiser for getting the Corsair to run smoothly.

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