Had a bit of breakdown trouble last night and I'd appreciate peoples thoughts before I go off and rip something to bits without needing to. I run a Weber DMTL on a 1.8l 8v which is also fitted with LPG via mixer ring that sits on top of the carb. It's been running sweet on gas recently and I hardly ever run on petrol. Last night I ran out of gas as the scheduled garage stop had run dry. Not a problem A few miles on petrol to the next one after I ran out. I manged about 1 mile before it simply cut out [:^(] Had a look over it before calling the breakdown guys. He was pretty certain that the carb was basically flooding the engine. Carb was soaking wet with petrol when trying to turn it over. A very worn needle jet or something (cant remember) jammed open which basically dumped all the petrol straight into the cylinders. With that I was pretty certyain it would run on gas and so it proved with the carb basically acting as a throttle on gas. All the fueling basically happens beforehand. So I'm thinking of a carb service. However this morning I fired it up, no problem until the oil warning light came on. Very odd as the oil is less than 400 miles old! I'm wondering if the oil has become contaminated with petrol, seeping past the rings? Any thoughts, My catch tank was quickly filled with a petrolly smelling liquid? So in short. Do I have 1. Contaminated oil 2. and a shot carb with either worn jet or "something" jammed open allowing the engine to flood. Cheers
This is one of the problems when using a carb with LPG. When you switch to LPG the carb still fuels the engine until the float bowl is dry, then meaning the float and needle valve are rattling around at a low level. When you switch back to petrol the carb has to fill again and it could be the needle and it's seat have become worn. Could also be the low float level is incorrect causing the float to jam and not rise when the petrol starts to flow back in to the float bowl, resulting in the carb flooding. So inspect the needle valve and float heights in the carb as well as checking for any debris that may have stopped the needle valve seating correctly. The oil issue may well be caused by the oil being diluted with petrol, so best to get the oil changed once the problem is sorted with the fuelling. Diluted oil does not lubricate or protect the engine as it should and can cause bearing failure.
cheers Danster makes sense. Oil change this evening and a carb service at the weekend. More reading needed there. I should be ok to run on gas until the weekend I think
Well the oil change was definitley worth doing. Cross fingers there's no damage but it seems to have given everything a damn good clean!! The oil came out looking like a very very strong tea, very thin and stunk of petrol. Anyone got a fence that needs preserving? Running sweet as on gas again but it's a carb strip this weekend. Just need to find the service kit I bought a while ago.
