No Idea!

[Paul Roberts]

Strange thing the modern world.

'Raphobic has been locked in his wet and sweaty stable, awaiting mot attention, for ten weeks. On opening up the garage and removing the cover I found him damp and forlorn.

I attempted to fire it up and achieved nothing beyond flattening the battery. Twenty four hours later, having charged the battery and checked everything logical; compression? Yup: sparks? Yup: fuel? Yup: nowt.

Now I've heard tell of "old fuel" syndrome but have never had first hand experience of it. However, in desperation, I toddled off to Halfrauds and purchased a can of "Easy Start", squirted it liberally into the elbows and pushed the big red button... . Result; fired on the first cylinder and continued to run like a quartz clock???

No idea...

[Tdm]

I always try and turn my car over at least once a week, as in the past when it has been left for any length have had problems starting, which appears to be because of the fuel, as squirting a little new fuel in the carbs then usually fixes it.

[Ian F]

Paul

Easy Start would start almost anything and is only to be used as a last resort. Cars that regularly need Easy Start appear to become dependent on it - it should be a controlled drug!

The fact it starts with Easy Start suggests little wrong - it definitely needs starting and using more.

Ian

[Paul Roberts]

I totally agree, chaps, and I normally drive it regularly however, as the MOT expired in mid December and the weather has been so crap ever since, I elected to wrap him up until the sun came out again..... , whenever that might be.

So: how long/short a time does it take for modern unleaded to become incombustible? As I mentioned, the instant it fired up, it continued to purr happily on the incombustible fuel.

I don't get that bit.....

[nib]

I wouldn't have thought it's the petrol Paul, the mower fired up yesterday after 4 month lay-up, you might of had grubby plug not behaving 100% but was fine once running courtesy of the easy start.
Mark

[V Mad]

I don't doubt that fuel can go stale; it stinks when it's really old. But for some unknown reason I have never had starting problems that are likely to be fuel age related even with fuel that is several months old.

My Tiger (Holley carb) is hard to start after more that 4 or 5 weeks, but once started, it is fine for the next couple of weeks - so I think that is maybe caused by bleed down of the hydraulic tappets. The stag starting doesnt seem to get bad even after several weeks provided the battery is kept topped up, and if very cold I use full choke plus a few pumps of the pedal.

Has anyone else found that old fuel still works OK?

[Ian F]

Chris,

Never had any problem with "my" old fuel. Admittedly don't lay Stagatha up over the winter, but fuel can be 3-4 months old - and not caused any problems so far! Let's hope I haven't tempted fate.

Ian F

[Paul Roberts]

Nope; for the sake of brevity, Mark, I've given only a précis of the actual events.

Having checked, tested and eliminated every component in the system, cleaned and tested (though they didn't need it) all plugs, dried and checked Luminition, distributor, coil, leads, etc. I could find nothing at fault. The only thing I didn't do was throw a match in the fuel tank....

Everything indicated it must start: except it wouldn't. I concluded it could only be the petrol not 'burning'.

Weird. But what do I know?

[davidf]

Nope; for the sake of brevity, Mark, I've given only a précis of the actual events.

Having checked, tested and eliminated every component in the system, cleaned and tested (though they didn't need it) all plugs, dried and checked Luminition, distributor, coil, leads, etc. I could find nothing at fault. The only thing I didn't do was throw a match in the fuel tank....

Everything indicated it must start: except it wouldn't. I concluded it could only be the petrol not 'burning'.

Weird. But what do I know?

Use it more often !!!

[Stagsongas]

I totally agree, chaps, and I normally drive it regularly however, as the MOT expired in mid December and the weather has been so crap ever since, I elected to wrap him up until the sun came out again..... , whenever that might be.

So: how long/short a time does it take for modern unleaded to become incombustible? As I mentioned, the instant it fired up, it continued to purr happily on the incombustible fuel.

I don't get that bit.....

Paul,

I can offer some unique perspective on this as I see it far more often than most.

When a carburetted car is converted to run on LPG, the float bowls are often left empty for long periods of time, as drivers will often ignore the advice to always start on petrol and warm up, then switch to LPG. They want to save a cupful of petrol when starting it up, fair enough, that was the point of converting the car, but there are hidden perils.

If the carb.s are left empty for long periods (simply not being refilled by running the engine) the petrol within will degrade and eventually evaporate completely, leaving a white, crystalline deposit which is more than capable of holding the float valves shut. This condition can at least remain until the engine and all attached to it has been shaken around a little, and some pressure has been exerted on the back of the valves by the pump.

What I think happened with your car is as described above - the float valves are stuck closed so the engine has nothing to run on, but when you fired it up with another fuel the pressure and vibration shook the valves free which allowed petrol to enter once more. From this you'll see how it all fits - the fuel stored in the theoretically sealed tank does not degrade, but the fuel in vented carb float bowls will.

The only way I'd differ with what you did is the Easy Start - as others have said in the past, it may well cause damage, I hate to hear that detonation 'clack' sound that must be hammering the big ends. TDM's method of dropping some fresh petrol down the carbs is much more suitable and still allows the engine to run for a brief time before the float valves free up.

The solution is easy - Start and warm up at least once a month (minimum) to not only do all the things that are beneficial (say Oil circulation) but to keep the carbs free from such deposits which, one day, will refuse to shift at all, demanding a carb strip and rebuild.

Good Luck

Steve

[pagan]

From the Bond movie "Golden Eye"
hammer repair.JPG

Would this be a bit to excessive for shaking the float loose?

If you remember the movie..

Allan

[Tdm]

I think Steve's explanation explains the situation very well and was both interesting and informative (certainly to me).
For once what I have done to resolve the problem in the past I am told is not wrong, and explains why it worked.

The only time now that I leave the car for any length of time without starting it is when I am away in the U.K., or on a Cruise,
but when I do go away I always remove the battery "earth" key so nothing can drain the battery when I am gone, and always
turn the car over again just as soon as I am back.

That is one mystery solved for me, the only one I don't fully understand (but I can live with), is why every hundredth or so starts
nothing happens when I turn the ignition key, but a good "tap" on the starter brings things to life again. I have always thought there is a worn "tooth" on the flywheel which on occasions is the one that aligns with the starter tooth, the starter is a farily new high torque one so it can't be a worn tooth on that as it happend with the old starter as well as the new - or could it be a not perfect terminal connection on the starter, which a "tap" on the starter brings together again?.

[Paul Roberts]

Thanks Steve, Terry and all for your observations so far.

Yeh, I'd considered the possibility of stuck floats (or, more likely, valves) and so stripped the float chambers. All appeared to be well with fuel present and float valves working.

My engineering involvement with the oil/petrochemical industry was a lifetime ago and thus my understanding of today's fuels is somewhat out of date. I do understand how "petrol" volatile aromatics evaporate and leave a variety of residues over time, however, in this instance there was no evidence of a problem; the ignition simply would not fire the fuel.

What's puzzling me is the fact that - with the injection of Easy Start - it fired instantaneously and ran perfectly thereafter.
(I understand the concern with Easy Start and I should say it is the first time I've ever used it in a lifetime of 'playing' with old bangers... .) I had, further, considered - given the wet environment - that there could be water at the bottom of the fuel tank from where fuel is drawn but, surely, if that were the case, the engine would have stopped immediately the Easy Start was burned up. Being of an analytical persuasion; I am genuinely lost on this one.

My conclusion was/is; it could only be the fuel and the questions remain - How and/or Why.

[Tdm]

Paul - if it happens again - instead of Easystart - just squirt some ordinary fuel into the carbs and see if that does the job.

[Stagsongas]

Thanks Steve, Terry and all for your observations so far.

Yeh, I'd considered the possibility of stuck floats (or, more likely, valves) and so stripped the float chambers. All appeared to be well with fuel present and float valves working.

My engineering involvement with the oil/petrochemical industry was a lifetime ago and thus my understanding of today's fuels is somewhat out of date. I do understand how "petrol" volatile aromatics evaporate and leave a variety of residues over time, however, in this instance there was no evidence of a problem; the ignition simply would not fire the fuel.

What's puzzling me is the fact that - with the injection of Easy Start - it fired instantaneously and ran perfectly thereafter.
(I understand the concern with Easy Start and I should say it is the first time I've ever used it in a lifetime of 'playing' with old bangers... .) I had, further, considered - given the wet environment - that there could be water at the bottom of the fuel tank from where fuel is drawn but, surely, if that were the case, the engine would have stopped immediately the Easy Start was burned up. Being of an analytical persuasion; I am genuinely lost on this one.

My conclusion was/is; it could only be the fuel and the questions remain - How and/or Why.

Paul,

With your experience you may know that pure petrol is actually quite useless at vaporisation, so all manner of other things are added into the blend to improve that.

Those additions increase vaporisation significantly, but the downside is that they will evaporate very quickly too. That makes for two carbfuls of bad starting fuel which simply won't combust easily. Your Easy start circumnavigated that problem by running the engine for long enough to both get rid of the duff fuel and allow the pump to pull up fresh, viable stuff from the tank.

It's interesting to consider that for this short time, the engine is not actually running on Easy start alone, but the bad petrol which is lit up by the readily vaporising Ether (Easy start).

The major shock for most is the principle component included to improve the vaporisation of petrol - liquid gas, LPG. It gets interesting when someone claims that petrol engines weren't designed to run on it

I wrote something on this a few years ago, focussing on the findings of Dr. Walter Snellings of USA. I'll see if I can find it. It might be out there on Google perhaps.

TDM - What you describe is a classic case of a lazy starter solenoid, it likes to be shaken free too, as does the old type ticker fuel pump and even yours truly sometimes!

Regards

Steve

EDIT - found it, para 8 on this page;

http://www.go-lpg.co.uk/whatislpg.html