Pierburg 2e2 Idle problem.

Was hoping for some good advice and ideas regarding the poor running of my cabby.

After a nice long run in the country last week when I came to park up the engine was idling at about 1500 rpm and when I shut
it down it kind of ran on for a bit then made more of a stalled shutdown.

When I came back to check the car after it had cooled a bit found nothing wrong under the bonnet apart from the hose that connects the carb to the brake servo had come apart at the joint where the small pipes join into it.

Pushed it back together and it started first time drove home about 15 miles and when i came to the end of my road it started to struggle on tickover when at the junction. Just after this as soon as i let of the pedal and the car engines drops to idle revs it stalls.

Will start again but will not idle on its own having to rev it or it drops to about 200/300 revs and then dies.

The carb is the pierburg 2e2 unit and showing about 98000 miles on it but would hope a quick repair is possible as dont want it in the garage while I save for a weber to swop it with.

I have checked the small hoses on the front of the carb under the airbox and all seem ok no leaks or splits.

Please any help would be great.

Cheers Andy.

 

Hi Andy,
I think you need to look again at this hose, and its connections at both ends. I assume you mean the bit that the pink arrow is pointing to in this pic?



If so, as you can see, it should have a jubilee clip at each end, and so shouldn't 'come apart' unless it is in such poor condition that the part held by the jubilee clip has disintegrated. Without a clip on it, I wouldn't trust it not to leak, I don't think.

Best to take the rubber pipe right off so that you can examine it carefully for splits etc.
A common problem for it to degrade as there is a lot of heat in this area.

Was the car running fine before?
How long have you had it?
Have you/anyone else made any adjustments to the carb recently?
When was the last MOT/emissions test?

 

After taking a second look to day at all the hoses and putting a new set of jubile clips on the small hose as per Ez pete said.

All looks to be ok but when i started to try and check the pull down unit following the guide that you guys suggested I found that the top butterfly on the carb the one just under the air box and the same one the pull down unit works on is in the half way open position as it is basically sat verticaly in the top chamber.

I would have hoped this would be shut like the guide says so that I could then do the test but I would assume this is causing the carb to have to much air and could be causing the poor idle.

I have tried to look down the side of the auto choke to see where it should be held closed but could not see any spring or lever that should be connected to hold it back.

The auto choke did get hot while I tried to run the car after the checks and also the wax stat is a metal bodied one and not plastic like the ones from gsf.

The history for the car is easy I got the car in October from a bloke who wanted to scrap it due to some damage to the rear bumper and all the plastics on the back were gone due to the car being to near to a other car fire.

At the last Mot the bloke said the emissions on the car were spot on.

The only other thing is that for some time when I started the car it would fire first time and then die straight away but then fire straight back up and be ok.

Once more thank you for the help and please try to help with this new issue of the butterfly position.

Cheers Andy

 

Don't worry about the choke flap being fairly open from 'cold' in this weather, I need to edit the FAQ thread as I recently discovered that it needs to be more 'winter cold' for it to be fully shut. Edit: Done.

Not too sure about the starting then cutting out behaviour, I'll have a think about it.
See if it continues to occur now that you seem to have fixed the air leak associated with that brake-servo hose.
Your brakes should work better without that leaking too.

 

Still the same problem.

Thank you Pete for your help on this.

When i drove the car home from its run out when all the trouble started when I put the clutch in and let the revs drop it would stall and then I would have to raise the clutch to jump start it back on.

When I start the car on the drive it only rough idles and does not seem to to auto choke any more like it did when I got the car. What I mean is it does not go up to 1200 rpm when first started and then slowly drop back down it just holds about 900 and then when I blip the throttle it revs up fine and then drops back down so low it dies.

Not sue what the connection is between stalling when warm and putting clutch in and then not reving higher when cold on start up like it should with the auto choke.

Have watched the 3/4 part that moves and it is working as should as in touching the threaded screw when cold and then slowly closing to about 8mm until you turn it off then goes back to touching the screw.

Cheers Andy.

 

I'm beginning to wonder if this is actually a carb problem.

The autochoke behaviour, in hot weather, is much more 'toned down' than you would have experienced during autumn/winter/spring. Above 15C the TTV will already be closed, so the fully-extended start position of the 3-point unit will not be maintained, as it is for a variable few seconds in colder ambient temps.

The choke flap will also be partly open, and the waxstat partly extended, so the 2e2 characteristic 'flourish' of revs at morning start-up will be much reduced. Trouble with the waxstat usually results in excessive revs during warm-up rather than what you are seeing.

Now, if there is some other problem; plugs/leads/dizzy cap/rotor arm for example, this reduced autochoking may not be quite enough to get it going nicely. Try giving it a five-second burst of 2k revs with the accelerator pedal, and see if it behaves better afterwards.

Something else to check is that the rubber carb mounting flange isn't leaking. With engine fully warmed up and running, waggle the top of the airbox/carb around gently in all directions, listening for any change in revs that could indicate a leak. You may need to loosen the M6 nut holding the front of the airbox.

Where are you based Andy?

 

ongoing issue with carb.

I have fought about the rotar arm and dizzy cap could be a part of the issue so in the morning I am going to go to GSF and pick up new cap ,arm ,plugs and leads.

This should then rule out these being the issue. This could be the reason like pete said and the other line of fought about the carb could be wrong.

I will check back later when done this and report on my findings.

I am based in sheffield so plenty of places to find spares.

Cheers Andy.

 

Problem solved.

After all the ideas and trying to work it out I have managed to solve the problem.

I Have Changed all the small vac pipes that run from the green ball to the carb and on to the main hose from the servo.

Also changed the small sections that go on the plastic pipes from the Dizzy and from the back of the carb to the air box.

Also replaced Rotar arm and dizzy cap as well as new leads and plugs.

Started first time and idle is now spot on and also drives perfect.

Thank you for all your help EZ Pete You have saved me and probably others a lot of garage bills.

Cheers Andy.

 

Well done Andy, but your mistake was not trusting and acting on rubjonny's advice above.
If we all did exactly what he writes, we'd all save ourselves a lot of time and trouble.

I guess we'll never know if it was a vac leak (quite likely) or the electrics you've changed, but the main thing is you're up and running again.