945 Niggles

[bluebrickrick]

Good news on the tailgate gas strut ball ended stud which had ripped out.

I cut a bit of 10 x 4mm steel strip about 30mm long and drilled and tapped an M8 hole about 1/3rd of the way down, by taking the long corners off with an angle grinder and grinding away a little of the remaining stripped 'nut' to form a rough letterbox with my trusty Lidl 'dremel', I tied the strip with a length of cotton through the hole, this allowed me to hold it up and start to screw in the stud, Loctite 270 was applied to both thread and face of 'nut' then the stud was screwed home with some force and the trim pushed back into position and the strut end refitted. No holes drilled in the rear pillar and no balancing nuts on sticks involved (the length and offcentre hole allowed the new 'nut' to rotate and then jam against the inside of the pillar, this anti rotation aspect was what caused me to use the shape and not waste time trying to figure out how to stop an ordinary nut rotating even if I found a way to get it in.

On the cut out front, I have been over the level crossing where previous failure occurred twice and turned at the junction 4 times with no problem, tank is full - time may tell

[Laird Scooby]

I don't know why i didn't think of this before - try adding 0.5 - 1.0 L of methylated spirits to the tank when you next fill up.

It's just occurred to me that there's a good chance you have condensation in the tank and it's built up to a level where it's causing a problem. Because petrol floats on water it's more likely to cause problems with a low/empty tank whereas with more fuel in the tank it's likely to get moved round more and be less of a problem.

The meths will form a sort of emulsion with the water which will allow it to be burnt with the rest of the fuel and in effect "dry" your tank out by removing the water.

Whether this will provide a total cure or not remains to be seen but for the cost and relative ease of trying it then it's definitely worth a try.

There may be those that hold their hands up in horror and say that meths will damage various seals etc in the fuel system. In larger quantities, prolonged use and/or higher concentrations this is probably true. However in this concentration it's just enough to remove the water without doing any damage to the rest of the system.

If it doesn't cure your problem you've only lost a few quid on the meths but you will have eliminated water from your fuel tank and a potential cause of the cutting out.

In fact i'm glad i thought of this, i need to treat my 760 to this and also a small dose of the same on my other two, just to be on the safe side.

[bluebrickrick]

Interesting idea ! I've used IMS when washing lab glass gear in the past but had not thought of using in a petrol tank before.


With the extra ethanol in fuel the in-steel tank condensation and corrosion is a PITA and the ethanol is slowly but surely eating through rubber seals and carb diaphragms in various strimmer / mower / chainsaw / rotovator engines - About the only things not to have been affected is the dear old Allen scythes although their tanks are pretty yukky I might not notice.

I have belatedly started to add the fuel treatment to raw petrol stored in cans or the implement.

Thanks for the tip

[Laird Scooby]

You're welcome - i hope it is something as simple as that!

Maybe i should start adding some sort of petrol treatment to my lawnmower as well. I don't really know anything about Allen scythes but something in my memory cell says they're pretty old these days, chances are the rubber is a slightly different formulation so may be immune to ethanol.

Maybe now we're exiting the EU we can tell them what to do with their ethanol in petrol!

[bluebrickrick]

So old there is brass instead of rubber in the carbs Dave

As for things changing when we leave the EU, we still have our own civil service which scent marked an extra layer onto the EU regs, I will not be holding my breath.

Only started adding the treatment so no experience as yet.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by bluebrickrick

So old there is brass instead of rubber in the carbs Dave

As for things changing when we leave the EU, we still have our own civil service which scent marked an extra layer onto the EU regs, I will not be holding my breath.

Only started adding the treatment so no experience as yet.

My first thought (being half asleep as it's nearly 1am) was "Crikey! Brass diaphragms! How do they work then?"

I take it there are no rubber components in the carbs then?

The one thing that gives me hope over and above our civil service "scent marking" the EU regs is that a lot of our MPs run classic cars and have interests in other classic vehicles. If they suddenly have to start forking out for new fuel pump seals, carb diaphragms and the like they might get round to enquiring just why we are adding ehtanol to petrol. Alternatively, we may see a rise in the number of classics fitted with LPG conversions. As both my Rovers are of an age where LPG was launched during their "normal" road-going lifetime i can justify LPG as a "period accessory" and have already converted one of them. The other will be done soon and i'm weighing up whether my 760 would just about scrape into the category of having an LPG conversion as a period accessory. Given that Volvo give their cars a life expectancy od 20 years i think it does.

If i fill up before we get ethanol routinely then maybe by the time the ethanol infested petrol reaches enough of a concentration to damage anything on mine (after converting to LPG of course) the MPs may well have rebuked the ethanol - i live in hope!

Be interested in knowing what fuel treatment you're using in your agricultural machinery and the results you get over a period of time - maybe you could start a new thread about it and link to it?

[Forrest]

My understanding, which could be wrong, is that there is no (or at any rate much less) ethanol in super unleaded. I run all my Volvos and garden machinery on this and have never had a problem, including leaving it in tanks with no additive over winter. Perhaps I've just been lucky.

[Laird Scooby]

I think (and hope!) you're right. I run all mine on super unleaded anyway, it improves the economy and the power but not both at the same time!

I also run my lawnmower on it which might seem like a waste to some. Some years back i did a test using Tesco unleaded, BP unleaded and BP Ultimate.
I had a fairly large garden then so it was a good comparison, starting with a full tank on the lawnmower i had to refill at least twice on Tesco fuel, once on BP unleaded but it was on vapour by the time i finished and on the Ultimate i was only filling the tank completely twice for every 3 cuts of the grass.
Bit of an anecdotal test i'll grant you but i did have repeatability with it after i moved and have a smaller garden.

[bluebrickrick]

Now that is a very interesting bit of information - I shall experiment

Thanks

[bluebrickrick]

Regret to bump the thread but after a long period of problem free operation this afternoon returning from taking the wife for a hospital appointment I had two stops in as many miles.

Both while approaching a crossroads on level, straight road, only 90 miles into a full tank of fuel, (had gone to the appointment via Norwich's Southern bypass where 70 - 80 attained and maintained with no issue uphill and down) Tacho working while rolling but no restart either reclutching and waggling throttle or on key after stopping - restart both times after perhaps a minute.

Since last time have checked relays esp pump rly for looseness etc ditto fuses. and repaired a split pipe end into the bottle which harvests hydrocarbon leaks.

It dawned on me after the second today that two previous failures have also been while on the overrun with foot off throttle while decelerating from say 40 -50 mph to perhaps 15-20 so first thing I did when we got home was checked the throttle position switch, as it was by then dark this consisted of altering the throttle and feeling for the bypass air valve to trip, which it seemed to do, and engine stopped listening for the switch operation, again appeared normal - I'll check the operating position in daylight and test it electrically - do you think this or perhaps the valve sticking or being held open might be my problem ?

Otherwise I'm not so convinced about a fuel problem now as I was - or at least the loss of fuel pressure by sucking air etc

As Johnny Five put it 'Need Input' although I'll add a please !

TIA

Rick