Edd's Talbot Samba Thread

[SambaS]

This is a strange one.

 

I put 40 litres of scrapyard petrol in both Sambas, they both went a bit smoky, the Style very smoky but runs fine.

 

The Cabriolet just wont run, I took the petrol back out and put in some fresh.. no different.

 

I took the plugs and leads out to pressure test and after putting them back in the chap helping me got it running perfect by waggling the HT leads on the plugs..

 

Perfect for two minutes as soon as I hit the road it started miss firing again so I had to feather the throttle to keep it driving, missing like hell.

 

So I bought a new set of pugs and leads - no different.

 

I wonder whether the petrol is stale or diesely or something. I've used scrappy petrol on and off for ten years and had no problem with it.

 

Adjusting the position of the distributor got it to run pretty well so I parked up happy it was fixed.

 

6 hours later I went to drive it.... same problem. Miss fires like hell, wont drive.

[explosive-cabbage]

Sounds like a strange one Ed.

 

Where do you get scrapyard petrol from and how much do you pay? I recently put 2 gallons of two and a half year old pez in an empty tank and the Samara ran perfect on it!

[SambaS]

Had to drain a couple of cars to take to the fire brigade I just used that, they both ran fine and were newer cars

[dollywobbler]

Of course, it could be that the condenser has failed coincidentally? (assuming it has one)

[SambaS]

It has electronic ignition so not that :/

[SambaS]

Just been out to it, it started but was misfiring/ not driving same as other night when I parked it up.

 

Took dizzy cap and rotor arm off to inspect, no problem.

Waggled every wire on the low tension side of the coil

disconnected the ignition amplifier and re connected

Made sure all HT leads were on right, they were.

 

Re started and it ran fine, took up road and it drove fine 5 miles or so round the block.

Picked my mate up then set off and it was misfiring again, and needed its head kicking in in order to drive home.

 

I will blow it up if this continues.

[ShiteRider]

How clean was the petrol? it might have dragged some shit into the carb.

My cortina did this when i ran the tank nearly dry ( normally never let i go below a quarter full) i blame the fuel, drained from write offs' at work, when really it was just shite from the bottom of the tank that had blocked the jets in the carb.

[red5]

Electronic ignition? Factory or aftermarket?

[SambaS]

I forgot to say I reduced the carburettor to its component parts, cleaned, checked and rebuilt it. There was no problem with the carb and now there definitely is no problem with the carb.

 

Factory electronic ignition...... it has an ignition amplifier, the part i refer to is the ignition amplifier.

[SambaS]

Loose wire to ignition amplifier caused no start... not sure if it's working loose was causing *all* the problems, seems to work okay now so going on a lengthy test drive.

 

You may never hear from me again.

[SambaS]

Here's a video:

 

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10151505454077992

 

I had 50 miles of top down fun over the smallest uppy downy roads in the Yorkshire dales then on the way back home - a nightmare

[red5]

Does it still do it with dizzy vac pipe disconnected? (with pipe blocked off) or any change at all?

 

Do you have access to a multimeter? Check coil for resistance ?

 

Sam. Puzzled. Watched video and hmmm.

[SambaS]

the coil is fairly new, i did remove the vacuum pipe from the carb, and blew down it, one of the umpteen things i did at the roadside trying to get home tonight... I have a nice fluke meter, how exactly do I test the coil? It is relatively new.

 

Steve said the accelerator pump jet in the carb must be blocked, for it to drive fine flat out, or rev fine on tickover, but nothing in-between whilst driving.

[red5]

I'll find an old manual and get resistance specs for you. Check resistance between both LT connections, then HT to both LT in turn.

 

Accelerator pump relatively easy - down-draught carb still ? remove air filter - pump open throttle using linkage - you should see a small jet akin to a waterpistol coming from the top of the venturi ('barrel') somewhere squirting towards the butterfly. It should squirt immediately you open throttle (briskly). if not it's probably blocked or the rubber diaphragm is holed. It being blocked would let it idle ok, run fine on full throttle, but would give a flat spot when opening briskly even on idle.

 

If you apply a slow steady increase in throttle whilst driving does it still run rough ?

 

Sam

[SambaS]

slow steady increase in throttle practically impossible hence feathering it to build up speed.

 

I have the carb in my kitchen. It's a Solex 32 34 Z2 (I think) from a Citroen ZX/ AX GT

 

I also have the original carb from the Cabrio (Solex 32 35 TACIV) and a pair of twins Solex from a Samba S (35 PBISA .

 

Just trying to figure out how to take the accelerator pump jet out, was quite easy on the Samba Roller's 32 PBISA 12

 

[SambaS]

swapped over the main jets before i took it off and made no difference

[Novanick1]

its nice to see that someone loves the little old samba, you are very privileged to have 2.

[SambaS]

quite a lot of sludge in the bottom of the float chambers

[SambaS]

Thanks Nick....

 

Well good news after carb stripdown and rebuild Samba is running sweet like nuts. 

 

I have lost the hellfire setting planting your foot right to the floor used to produce though!

 

Either the main jet I swapped from the other carb is smaller, or I have reduced the size of a tube trying to pull it out to clean.. very marginally. Not the accelerator pump jets, a big one at the top that I have never seen petrol come out of.

[SambaS]

What does this thing I circled do?

 

It's a brass tube that connects to a long pipe that sits inside the float chamber. There is another long pipe that sits in the float chamber adjacent to that one that just goes to the top of the carb and out into air.. the ends of the tubes that sit in the float chamber look just like the ends of the accelerator pump jets.

 

 

its about 2mm in diameter and was round, now its ever so slightly oval.

 

 

I've had my question answered: "Its the high speed jet, only works with throttle wide open and high rpm with the engine under load"

 

Bugger!

[SambaS]

Well that carburettor rebuild lasted 8 days!

 

It's doing it again. I wonder whether I upset a load of crap from the inside of the petrol tank when I filled it riiiiiiiight up. Might have to come off and be cleaned.

 

Then a new filter and another carburettor rebuild and I hope this will last longer.

 

If not I will try a different carburettor on it.

 

It's currently on a Solex 32 34 Z2 from a Citroen AX GT, what others will go straight on, anyone know?

 

Preferably something I can pick up quite easily, oooh 205s at the scrappy well remembered Edd.

[SambaS]

2 dizzles and an L reg petrol with more electronic shite attached to it than is good for any car.

 

In other news I didn't have any trouble with the Samba Cabrio on the way to the scrappy :/

[garycox]

Maybe it thought you were gonna leave it there?

[SambaS]

Drove over to Malham yesterday without much of a problem but it did feel like it was losing power or misfiring or generally not running 100%

 

Will fixed my choke and accelerator cables just as a side job really, and once that was done we went for a drive round the back roads where it did it's usual misfire - die... crap in petrol kind of symptom.

 

I back flushed the jets by covering the top of the carb and revving it, this made a bit of a difference.

 

On the way back home it got worse and worse and broke down totally twice. Back flushing the carb made no difference so I had to drive it to my mums with my foot flat to the floor, so sorry anyone who witnessed that.

 

Today after some sleep and food and after regaining a bit of patience i dismantled the carb and checked all the jets, they were okay so I put it back together no difference so I tried once more and made 100% sure the main jet on the side worked, the 2 jets in the centre of the carb worked, and the accelerator jet worked by squirting carb cleaner down them all and observing it come out of the things.

 

The car still wasn't accelerating, the carb would just make a big sucking noise like usual and the car would bog down and die.

 

So I focussed my attention of the other problem I know this car has, some bad wiring to the coil and or ignition amplifier, I disconnected and reconnected everything and made sure the wires to the amplifier were pushed right into the block connector, I re routed the HT leads and they were all crossed and coiled round each other, took off the dizzy cap and checked it was clean and that the top carbon thing was in.

 

When I put everything back together it would drive.

 

Fixed/ish.

 

It still feels like there is a problem but I managed to drive home.

 

Strangely it drives with the choke on fine, even when this problem presents itself. The FSO did this and it was because of a problem with the floats in the carb. But the needle valve in the Samba is working, the pin holding the floats in is fine and the floats do their job.

 

There are so many variables with this problem its hard to know where to start.

 

I guess the overkill method would be to buy a new EVERYTHING: distributor, distributor cap, rotor arm, coil, ignition amplifier, have all the low tension circuitry rewired, swap the carb over remove and clean the petrol tank and change all the  petrol pipes and filter and petrol pump.

 

I'm going to put a different carb on it and take the tank of and see if there's any crap in the petrol now. Once that's done and it still has the problem at least 2 things will have been ruled out.

 

This pisses me off because before I took the engine out it was tip top reliable.

[Burnside]

Sorry to read you been having so much trouble with the Cabrio SambaS I don't think I can be much help but are Uno stated playing up a few months ago and would only run off the choke all the time like you mentioned. So we sent it off to a guy who advertises in Practical Classics. He replaced the jets as they were worn and a few gaskets came to £65 I think and that solved the problem. We just need to get the mixture bang on now as it seams to favour it being slightly too rich for some reason I think.

 

Could be worth checking the mounting flange at the base of the carb too in case it's allowing air into the mixture as had that on my old Uno 45S about 11 years ago.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

What does the spark look like, is it a nice big fat regular thing or a poxy little effort?

 

Another thing you could try is geta gallon can of pez and a lenght of pez pipe and connect that to yuor fuel pump instead of the proper tank, see if that makes any odds. have you got a fuel filter in the line? If so does it look clean in there? What sort of pump is it, mechanical or electric?

[SambaS]

Definitely not a loose carb but I have seen that problem before Burnside. It's doing about 20MPG at the min, I put a full tank in the other day and did around 200 miles and it's all gone which is fecking annoying. A carb rebuild kit or replacement carb is my next job as I didn't get round to this today.

 

Strangely the original one I have for the car looks too complicated for the shit I have to attach to it, so I'd be looking for a replacement the same as what's on it from a Citroen ZX.

 

Not sure about the spark Mr B, but the car fluctuates between running perfect for a few days to *this* problem. Currently it is running fine.

 

I have just removed the petrol tank, gave it a good swirl out and put all the petrol in a bucket, wasn't much in the way of contaminants at all, I filtered the petrol into another bucket and put it back in the tank, and the tank back on the car. So that's one thing I can rule out.

 

The petrol filter is new as of yesterday. The problem stated after that was fitted. The old one wasn't particularly bad but did have some sludge in it and discolouration.

 

It's on a mechanical fuel pump, it squirts petrol a good foot or two so I'd say it's working fine.

[Rocket88]

If it runs ok with the choke out, does this not suggest it's running lean? I know that you've checked the baseplate of the carb, but how about the intake manifold itself? Straight 6 vauxhall lumps [Ventora / Cresta] where notorius for developing holes in unseeable places [usually directly under the carb] which would make them run like a bag of shite [if at all!]

[SambaS]

Set off tonight with a problem, this got worse until the car wouldnt drive. Played about with the suspect wiring, nada.... did the carb *fix again (rev to 7000rpm hand covering carb until it dies) and it ran perfect again.

 

So jets must keep getting blocked.

 

Definitely the carb... I just dont understand why after cleaning it the other day it didn't resolve the problem. I must be shit.

 

New carb it is, but its proving hard to find the right (wrong) one.

 

Anyone breaking an AX GT??

[SambaS]

OR I buy an expensive rebuild kit: 40EUR from Germany