Re: Speed limiters

You would have had lots of vacuum to run the brake booster, at least.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

With the cylinders flooded, it meant that the spark plugs were soaking wet with fuel. Sparks were simply not possible until the gap had dried, and that only took place when there was little fuel left in the cylinder. I don't understand why you'd expect an explosion in the exhaust as the exhaust valve would be closed at the time of the spark. Or are you saying that the exploded fuel-air mix in the cylinder when forced out of the cylinder by the piston would still be hot enough to ignite any unburnt fuel-air mix in the exhaust system ?

Your carb must have been badly misadjusted, or the needle valve leaking badly. That fuel wasn't sprayed into the cylinders, it was supposed to be pulled in by the venturi effect in the carb throat.

The whole point of a carburetor is to keep the mixture correct over a very wide range of throttle openings.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Carb was fine and not misadjusted, and the needle valve wasn't leaking. See Carl Ijames post, particularly the penultimate sentence. I can't remember exactly, but I think that in the end I had to keep the accelerator pedal pushed down to the floor while turning the engine over with the starter motor until it fired again. This allowed maximum flow through the cylinder without the "spurt" of extra fuel obtained by pumping the accelerator pedal. If that had failed, I would have had to remove the spark plugs and let the fuel evaporate.

For those who know the area, I'd just driven up Hardknott Pass and down Wrynose Pass. That is an impossible drive without an engine functioning perfectly, as it's up a 1 in 3 gradient at times. Even in first gear a car will only crawl up, and it's not helped by the inner rear wheel lifting off the road at hairpin bends and the diff slipping!

yeah, that's what would happen when I did it.

mufflers tend to intensify gas explosions.

Catalytic converters get in the way howevwer and really do not like being fed fuel-air mix.

Err no. Once the key was in the off position the steering lock on some models could come on at any time it felt like it when the steering wheel was aligned right with the locking mechanism. Same reason you sometimes had to jiggle the steering wheel to start the car.

It happened to a friend doing much the same thing as you on a straight rapidly descending road which was his good luck!

Depending on when it was servo assisted brakes might not have been present.