Last week, after a trouble free trip from London to the Isle of Wight in the Alpine Fastback we encountered a two mile tailback on the approach to the Blackwall tunnel. After sitting in traffic for about 15 minutes crawling along the engine died and wouldn't re-start.
We were in the outside lane of 4 lanes of traffic but luckily we were on an incline so somehow I managed to freewheel the car across all four lanes with the wife waving frantically at other drivers to let us through. Once safe I couldn't spot any obvious reasons for breaking down so I called for recovery.
When the chap arrived he spotted straight away that there wasn't enough fuel in the fuel filter, popped the fuel line off the filter held his finger over the filter end and when I cranked the car the fuel spurted through and when re-connected the car ran fine. He said it was an airlock in the fuel line caused by sitting in traffic.
I'm now worried that this may happen again as heavy traffic is a routine experience in London. So, I've bought a carb heat-shield and I'm considering replacing the fuel line from pump to carb and a new filter. The pump is about 2 years old.
Any advice or experiences you could share? I certainly don't want another Blackwall tunnel event!
Interesting tale but sorry to hear that you had to call the professionals to get you going again.
Since I've swapped my strombergs for webers mine doesn't like heavy traffic at all and it gets lumpy for a while, but I haven't suffered fuel issues or fuel evaporation.
The best modification to make (which mine has and I use a lot) is an electric fan fitted to the radiator and switch on the dash. Its always on in all traffic.
You may also improve things by having your radiator re-cored, which I'm looking into having done.
Check the fuel lines aren't located too close to the exhaust manifold and consider rerouting if they are.
I think Webers were always a bit bad for lumpy running when hot, even in period.
Single carb should take the heat ok, like you say maybe check the cooling system is up to scratch and consider an electric fan or coating the manifold with Zircotec (which isn't cheap). Heat deflectors are being used more and more in Classics.
Haven't I heard the inline fuel filters give more trouble for vapourisation, or am I making that up? If you must have one try and get it further away from the heat source perhaps.
Thanks for the responses. I'm going to fit the heat-shield and renew and re-route the fuel pipe and remove the filter. I'll most likely fit an electric fan as well.
Fastback breakdown!!!
Posted - 11 Jun 2016 : 14:44:25
