Hi guys, another mechanical spitfire-related question to you awesome experts from a complete novice!
If anyone can help shed some light for me please, I'd be very grateful :0)
I had a problem which I seem to have fixed but not sure how! I did a handful of things, but not sure which would have solved it!
Up until today car (1300 MK3) started up perfectly.
After I replaced the windscreen washer pump I went to start the car up, and she started okay, but as soon as I took my foot of the accelerator the revs dropped off completely and she'd cut out. Whilst I'm learning, I'm pretty confident that a washer pump isn't going to effect the car like that?!?
I thought maybe she was cold, so I ran her for a bit with the revs up, took foot off, and she cut out.
One thing I've noticed recently when I start her up though, is I pull the choke out to fire her up, and then as soon as she's started, I have to pop the choke back in straight away and bring the revs up a bit for about 1 minute or so. From there she'll tick over okay, although I can't help think she's ticking over a little high at 1,200 to 1,500 rpm?
Other things I did (one of which was the solution) was:
1) nudged the timing spindle on the distributor by about 2 notches (this doesn't make sense to me though as she was working fine about 2 days ago so not sure how it could have changed, but I do understand that this setting can impact how the car runs and starts etc)
2) The plastic 'casing' on the choke cable runs a bit short, so sometime it catches when it goes into the 'pipe/hole' I tweaked that a few times to get it to settle in correctly - but again - I've had this before but doesn't result in the car stalling.
3) I'd recently replaced the coolant (drained/flushed etc) but didn't realise you have to leave the engine running for 15 mins and that whilst it looks like you've filled it up, when you do this, it sucks a lot of coolant into the system, so you need to top it up even more. That said, unless I'm missing something completely obvious, I'm certain that an airlock or something in the radiator wouldn't cause the car to cut out? BUT, still feel I need to ask as it was one of the things I did which resulted in the fix
My guess it's something to do with the choke or the timing, but thought I'd ask here
Sorry again for such a daft question, but thought I'd ask here, not only to find out what the problem might be, but also if it's an indication of another underlying problem I might need to look at.
Many thanks guys
Cheers,
Mark