Stale Fuel?

[TMilne]

All,

Firstly, apologies for my "Stag Ignorance" but having only bought my car last year, this is all a bit new to me. Throughout last summer, my Stag worked really well basically no problems, a few tweaks of the carbs, but nothing too serious. In the Autumn, as the weather closed in and I started to use the car less and less it started to threaten not to start - but I didn't think too much of it - it need a bit more choke, and a bit more throttle, but I always managed to get it going - just....

Anyway, now I've come to get it going for the spring, and it really won't start. The best way I can describe the problem is that as you try to start it, the car turns over perfectly, and seems to fire OK - it gets to the point where you want to let go of the starter motor fine - but then you let go of the starter motor and it stops, immediately. If you keep it turning on the starter motor, then it keeps running, but not as soon as you let it go.

Going through the obvious bits and pieces, and it does seem to be generating a good spark so I'm looking at carbs/fuel etc. As the fuel in the car has been in it since September (ish...) I took that as a starting point - maybe as I've had issues with this before in other cars. Taking the fuel out and putting in my other classic car (a 1969 Lotus 7) which was running fine last weekend, but now it's running, but is ROUGH, probably not driveable.......So, looks like that could be the cause. I've put 20ltrs of fresh fuel into the tank of the Stag but it still won't start. I've ordered a new fuel filter and some new spark plugs to clean all of that through, but is there anything obvious I have missed or should check?

Thanks for your advice.

Tim

[Bob Heritage]

Check also that the ballast resistor is ok. Had that problem on a Transit, it ran until the key was released.

Bob

[1959terry]

Ethanol based fuel is hydroscopic therefore absorbs water. The water moisture, along with ethanol, slowly deteriorates the metal parts of the carburettor therefore I would imagine that the jets within the carburettor are blocked. You may be lucky and get away with a clean with carburettor cleaner spray. Failing this you will need to have them ultrasonically cleaned.

[wilf]

Still got oil in the carb dashpots?

[jakesmig]

I put my Midget, which had a full tank of fuel, on SORN 2 years ago. I'm still using that tankfull to run it up to temperature every month or so. Starts first time and runs sweetly.

John.

[flying farmer]

As Bob said, check the coil is still getting power when it is not cranking. While cranking the coil is fed from the starter motor bypassing the loom and ballast resistor, and the problem may lie somewhere within the normal ignition circuit up to the coil.

Neil