Thread: Series 3, 2.6L 6 cyl stalling and won't start. Help!

Ok, this isn't quite over yet, as I had some problems this morning. can't be timing because i've not adjsuted that. Pot has oil in it, so not that.

However mixture could be it. when I put the air valve form the other carby in it ran and started well, but put out a lot of black smoke. I know black smoke in a di9esel is over fuelling, but what about a petrol??

So I swaped the diaphram and put the original air valve and metering needle back in. (Thanks ron for that stromberg tuning book, I know the correct names now ). It doesn't blow the black smoke now, although did briefly when I put on the choke when it was warm.

When it stalled this morning, cranking it with the foot down brought it back to life, so too much fuel I presume from previous comments.

So I need to lean out the mixure, and to do so I hold the air valve down with a screwdriver, and adjust the needle at the bottom with a coin, turning it clockwise to weaken the mixture. according to the book, letting the air valve up a little should speed up a lot with too much fuel, stall with not enough, and stay the same, or drop a little when it is right. Wonder if it is warm enough to give it a go in my lunch break today?

Cold could have been an issue this morning as well as it was pretty frosty!

Originally Posted by Phoenix

However mixture could be it. when I put the air valve form the other carby in it ran and started well, but put out a lot of black smoke. I know black smoke in a di9esel is over fuelling, but what about a petrol??

Yes, black smoke from a petrol engine indicates excessively rich mixtures.

I forgot to add that I got a couple of backfires this mroning as well, scared the crap out of me. one was a big one, and then a smaller one.

Backfire out the exhaust or through the inlet?

from in the car, it appeared to be out the exhaust.

Quite possibly got a spark issue as well as overfuelling.

Doing keybangers (backfire ou the exhaust) used to be as easy as turning off ignition while moving. Carby would keep supplying fuel, but it wouldn't get burnt. You then get a build up of raw fuel mist in the exhaust system.

Turning the ignition back on would get the fuel in the pipes burning, giving a key banger.

Sounds like you might have something similar going on.

Could be, i'm not 100% sure on the health of my coil, so I might check that first

I checked my timing on the weekend (although it looks like my timing light may be broken ) . I had a look at hte timing marks on the bottom pullet, and found that they are marked on the pully, not the block like on the holden. Nice. so I made the 2 ATDC marker nice and shiny, lined it up, looked in the dizzy, and it;s pointing to No. 6 which is third in the firing order, WTF !!! I didn't have time to pull out a spark plug to check, but if it was 180 degrees out it wouldn't run would it?

more likely the pully isn't in the right place ???

If the dizzy was 180 degrees out it would run, provided the leads were 180 degrees out on the cap as well...

It sounds like you need to go back to first principles so that you have a solid baseline to work from.

Pull the No1 plug and find top dead centre on compression.
Then check that the crank pulley marks line up where they should.
Then get the distributor and leads in the correct spot.

If all your ducks are lined up and there is spark and fuel, it should run.