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Old fuel goes stale ??? It's a load of bow locks !!


KevinR

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I've finally found time to dig the Spitfire out of the garage and start recommissioning it.

I drove it into the back garage back in May 2015, just before I started the build of my new extension, and it has slumbered there since then.

When I put it away it had approximately 1/3rd of a tank of 97 octane unleaded (probably also E5, but I cant remember)

Anyway, I started digging it out yesterday - the battery was as flat as a pancake - read 0.00V on the digital multimeter, so I put it on charge for 24 hours using an old school 10A battery charger.

This afternoon, the moment of truth - put the key in the ignition and tried to start it without the choke.  Engine turned over, I could hear the fuel pumping to the carbs and I watched the oil light go out and the oil pressure build up on the pressure gauge - probably no more than 10 seconds of cranking.

A few seconds later, there were a couple of coughs and the engine burst into life - a little rough without the choke, but as soon as I pulled the choke out it ran a lot better.

Put the car in gear and drove forward out of the back garage, through the front garage and onto the driveway.

The clutch plate was NOT seized, but the brakes are a little stiff, I think that the master cylinder bore may have corroded, so there will need to be a little work done there.

All rubber hoses still OK, all rubber boots on the track rod ends, steering rack and front uprights still OK.

Allowed the engine to warm up and put the choke in, its running really sweet - all on SEVEN year old fuel !!!

Just need to give the braking system the once over, probably strip and rebuild the master cylinder and check the brake flexi hoses and she will be ready to drive across the road to the Duxford Triumph day on the 4th September.

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18 minutes ago, Steve P said:

I have serious garage envy, been working on my Herald today in my rented garage, no power, no light and no space to move around the car.

I need to kick my kids out (late 20`s) and move.

S

Just to rub it in a bit more, the back garage is 40ft long by 15ft wide, and the front garage is "only" 30ft long by 15ft wide for the front half and 10ft wide for the back half.

There are still 2 GT6's at the very back of the back garage !

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13 hours ago, KevinR said:

Just to rub it in a bit more, the back garage is 40ft long by 15ft wide, and the front garage is "only" 30ft long by 15ft wide for the front half and 10ft wide for the back half.

There are still 2 GT6's at the very back of the back garage !

My garage here in London is nearly the same size!  Just needs a roof :(

New Chassis in Position.jpeg

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Well done Kevin!

Before I got my car running again it sat in the garage for 15 years and started once a year for more than a decade. This was on 1/2 tank off pre E5/E10.

Conversely I put the car away in November 2021 and started up again in March 2022, all was well for the first 10 miles then it died. The cause was the engine won't fire on water. E5/10 absorbs water, when it can't absorb anymore it separates and you've got water in your tank.

So, some fuel does, some fuel don't and not quite a load of old Borax.

Doug

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 Always a really a great moment when  something that hasn’t run for years bursts into life- congratulations!

Re stale fuel - Probably much less a problem than many make it out to be, though I wouldn't go as far as calling it bollocks.

Where issues do arise there may be a number of converging factors such as the previous conditions in the tank, the filters, jets  ( small engine garden machinery carbs with microscopic jets do get into problems from my experience  ,  how/ where the vehicle was stored

- Your garage which seems superb( and viewed enviously  by many of us ! )is probably an ideal place to store a vehicle to lessen the likelihood such ills - including getting a stuck clutch.

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Well done, Kevin!

You are probably  right about 'stale fuel' being too often blamed, but I can say that one of my engines, built to a CR of 10.5, pinked on first running after a winter lay-off.   The quality of the fuel, in particular its octane rating, must have deteriorated over winter., because a fill-up with new fuel (Shell V-Power, 99 octane) abolished the pre-ignition for good.    Now, I  always run  the tank low, put in some 'fuel preserver' (Briggs & Stratton's "Fuel Fit") and then run the mixture through the system before locking it up for the winter.

John

 

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Internal combustion engines, once started, inherently want to keep going. I have fed all kinds of stuff into them and they have run more or less OK.

I have had slightly less power sometimes, or a higher idle but after a few tankfuls of "good" gas it usually went back to normal.

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8 hours ago, Neil Clark said:

My garage here in London is nearly the same size!  Just needs a roof :(

New Chassis in Position.jpeg

I once had a "garage" like that, and the local Council jobsworth objected to it as a car that was not on its own four wheels could fall off the axel stands and injure some scrote trying to climb over it.

Dont have those problems any more - my only issue being that I dont have the ceiling clearance to get a 2 or 4 post lift , and I'm not particularly keen on digging a pit. 

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47 minutes ago, KevinR said:

...... and injure some scrote trying to climb over it.

Maybe if a few more enterprising judges, instead of offering compensation to miscreants, offered them large fines for trespass, criminal damage and the like, society could in some way get back to what some might discribe as 'an even keel'. Fell though the fragile roof - shouldn't have been up there, it's there a weathershield not a play area. Fell off a wall - it's there to keep the likes of you out. Knocked off an illegal off-road bike/got hurt on a railway line.....!! It goes on and on. Common sense fails when compensation lurks and there is always someone else to blame.

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Current 'opinion' seems to be that if people turn to crime as a result of 'poverty' then it's not their fault and they shouldn't be punished. No matter how hard you work, no matter how you budget, and save, and no matter how careful you are with money, if you have anything at all worth stealing then you're a rich ***** and it's only fair that someone else should be allowed it, too, and if they can't steal it then they should be allowed to wreck it. 

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1 hour ago, DVD3500 said:

Internal combustion engines, once started, inherently want to keep going. I have fed all kinds of stuff into them and they have run more or less OK.

I have had slightly less power sometimes, or a higher idle but after a few tankfuls of "good" gas it usually went back to normal.

The popular 'alternative' to petrol is diesel, and there seem to be people making a living out of pumping it back out when some idiot has put it on the wrong tank.

Did I say idiot?  I did it.  My excisecwasvthat it was on the way back from CLM, I had been up all night the night before and we had started our journey home rather early in the morning.   Anyway, I put nine litre or so of diesel in the tank of Sofas, before I realised.   Filled up with Super.    On the rest of the journey, John in the race barge said that I was making seven colours of smoke, and it wouldn't start for ages coming off the ferry.  Eventually after two more fill ups, I stopped and pulled the plugs, to find them all filled with 'goo' around the electrodes.   Wipe and blow out, and all was well!

John

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On 07/08/2022 at 19:51, KevinR said:

Just to rub it in a bit more, the back garage is 40ft long by 15ft wide, and the front garage is "only" 30ft long by 15ft wide for the front half and 10ft wide for the back half.

There are still 2 GT6's at the very back of the back garage !

I am not going to say a word about my garages. 

🤐

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13 hours ago, JohnD said:

The popular 'alternative' to petrol is diesel, and there seem to be people making a living out of pumping it back out when some idiot has put it on the wrong tank.

Did I say idiot?  I did it.  My excisecwasvthat it was on the way back from CLM, I had been up all night the night before and we had started our journey home rather early in the morning.   Anyway, I put nine litre or so of diesel in the tank of Sofas, before I realised.   Filled up with Super.    On the rest of the journey, John in the race barge said that I was making seven colours of smoke, and it wouldn't start for ages coming off the ferry.  Eventually after two more fill ups, I stopped and pulled the plugs, to find them all filled with 'goo' around the electrodes.   Wipe and blow out, and all was well!

John

I think I saw a Fifth Gear episode where they filled cars with the "wrong" fuel until they "died" and then re-filled them and they were fine...

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I saw a Top Gear version, diesel in the petrol engine, petrol in the diesel. The petrol engine sort of ran and was OK afterwards. The diesel engine tried and died and remained dead. 

I once got the contaminated fuel light come on in my diesel, local Tesco had a doggy batch contaminated with water. They paid for my new fuel pump and tankful, eventually. 

Doug

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Just now, dougbgt6 said:

I saw a Top Gear version, diesel in the petrol engine, petrol in the diesel. The petrol engine sort of ran and was OK afterwards. The diesel engine tried and died and remained dead. 

I once got the contaminated fuel light come on in my diesel, local Tesco had a doggy batch contaminated with water. They paid for my new fuel pump and tankful, eventually. 

Doug

Back in the late 1990s when fuel smuggling was completely out of control - the 1998 Agreement had pulled Police right back out of the border areas so there was no enforcement in huge areas and trucks were sailing across the border full of marked fuel oil, which little back-street garages were bleaching and selling (complete Filling Stations were spring up all over, doing a roaring trade then being shut down again within days, only to reopen as soon as the owners could locate replacement fuel pumps) the dodgy diesel was destroying diesel pumps by the thousand, and no-one could source replacements quickly enough. A replacement SECOND-HAND pump for a Rover 25 cost over £1000. 

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Pssst....wanna buy some grass?

Yes that's the current colour, we've had rain here right up until last weekend. That bit is also in the shade from noon so cooler to work on.

I did an oil change on that vehicle, sump holds too much for my oil drain can so I took three or four litres out with a 12v pump first, then washed the pump out with petrol. No idea how old the petrol was but the pump worked fine.

 

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