Car breakdown cure ??

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Mon 16 Jul 2001 16:10
Car breakdown cure ?? - Chas
My sister`s car broke down at the weekend ( misfiring then cut out ) and the Callout man from the Rescue Service says that it looked as though there was a problem with the fuel .

To cure it, so he said , he apparently swopped the leads around on the car and revved it hard..This made the engine pop and bang and produced lots of smoke smoke out of the exhaust !!!!

This supposedly sorted the problem out.

I`ve NEVER heard of this way to clear dirty fuel..
Can anyone explain what it was supposed to do, and explain the theory behind it??
I don`t think it cured the problem as it is still misfiring so it looks as though I`ll have to have a look at it.

Anyone any ideas on misfiring problems with an H Reg Nova ( with points ) ??
Thanks

Chas
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Mon 16 Jul 2001 20:49
Italian tune-up - David Lacey
This is commonly known as an Italian Tune up
Involving high revs and judicious use of the accelerator & gearstick!!

Seriously,
It is possible to clear a fuel blockage from the carburettor by using high revs to achieve vacuum levels not normally reached by normal driving, to drag a blockage out of a jet - this is possibly what he did, rather than strip down the carburettor.

Rgds
David
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Tue 17 Jul 2001 06:04
Re: Italian tune-up - Andrew Moorey (Tune-Up Ltd)
Treat it to a proper tune up, ensuring that a new condenser is fitted to the distributor. If it is, as I suspect, the older OHV engine, they suffer with problems in the distributor with eccentric cam-lobes making it difficult to set the points gap (dwell angle), more so with the Delco distributor. I personally set the points on these with a feeler gauge ensuring that there is adequate gap on all four cam-lobes. Look in Yellow pages under Car Engine Tuning and Conversion.
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