A Dusty Tale...
Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 1:37 am
A Dusty Tale...
(Photo originally posted by 2nd Hand Yank in the "Can you identify what these parts are, from these photos?" thread).
This picture reminded me of an incident with my friends on the way to bushwalking in Ettrema Creek, out the back of Nowra way, back in the late 90's.
I'd caught a train down the coast, and was picked up by a couple in a Commodore wagon. My friends were coming along in their own car, a L-Series wagon (there had to be a Subaru link in there somewhere
), so we headed out in a two car convoy with the Commodore leading as it knew the way to the parking site.
Now my friends' L-Series was a carburetted 1.8l of approximately 1988-1990 vintage. It wasn't very fast, but it got them where they wanted to go, reliably, never having given them any trouble.
As I was in the back seat of the Commodore, I had time to look around. Being October, warm and calm, we threw up quite a bit of dust- actually more of a dustscreen- as we travelled down the dirt road. I knew my friends behind in the Subaru would be in the dust, so I expected them to hang back. But to my dismay, they were doing the opposite- sitting right up our tail, directly in the dust plume and far too close for comfort or the good of their vehicle. I tried to wave to them to tell them to drop back, but they either didn't see or understand, so I gave up and relied on their air filter to keep things in good order.
Unfortunately after perhaps 20kms of the dirt road they started flashing us to pull over, which we duly did. Our driver got out and went back to speak to them. My friend Jim (name changed to protect the guilty) had said the car was running rough and losing power. After a minute, I got out to see what all the kerfuffle was about and had the situation explained to me.
I didn't like the look of this, so I asked Jim to stop the car, he replied it was stopped. As the engine was idling away quietly, I said, "No, turn it off (the engine)," which he again said was off. With the engine still idling I couldn't really understand what he was doing so I again I said, "Turn the engine off!"
At this point, as Jim handed me the keys through the open window with the engine still idling, a very nasty thought formed in my mind.
Preignition. And not just a minor rumble or burp like when you turn and old car like and Escort off, this allowed the carburetted car to run, or at least idle pretty well indefinitely, without an ignition system.
And it had to be caused by the dust. But how???
I asked Jim to rev the engine- it wouldn't really so I had him turn the key back to "on"- no need to start the engine as it hadn't stopped! Revving produced a very uneven result. Luckily the car was a manual so I got him to stall the engine and pop the bonnet so I could have a look.
Oh, dear.
You couldn't really make out what colour most parts used to be due to the brown dust now covering everything. You could see where it went into the air filter intake, as that was the only way into the engine I took off the air filter cover.
Oh, DAMN.
The rubber ring that was meant to seal around the air filter insert had come partly adrift- almost exactly at the air intake pipe position. So the super-dusty air thrown up just in front was able to be piped directly to bypass the filter and enter the engine. Go back and visit the pic linked above. Now visualise it slightly oily as the inside of a carby will be, spray coated with 20kms intense fine dust. The butterfly valves were being obstructed, the venturi was mostly blocked and everything inside the air filter was as brown as outside. The cleanest part was arguably the air filter element itself.
I wondered how to clean it. Well I knew how to clean it, I just didn't see the requisite bits being available 45 kms from Nowra and 20kms up a dirt road.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, a local farmer was nearby, so in vain hope we asked him if he had any carby cleaner. He didn't but with a can of his WD-40 I was able to more-or-less wash out the carby body in-situ. After carefully cleaning out the air cleaner housing, reseating the housing and particularly the rubber seal properly, the engine was restarted and it's 'throat was cleared.' With a stern warning about driving up people's tailpipes especially on dirt roads, we set off for an enjoyable if uneventful 3 day walk in and out of Ettrema Creek.
In the end that little L-series went on to more than 360,000kms seemingly without any ill effects of its attempted choking.
(Photo originally posted by 2nd Hand Yank in the "Can you identify what these parts are, from these photos?" thread).
This picture reminded me of an incident with my friends on the way to bushwalking in Ettrema Creek, out the back of Nowra way, back in the late 90's.
I'd caught a train down the coast, and was picked up by a couple in a Commodore wagon. My friends were coming along in their own car, a L-Series wagon (there had to be a Subaru link in there somewhere
), so we headed out in a two car convoy with the Commodore leading as it knew the way to the parking site.Now my friends' L-Series was a carburetted 1.8l of approximately 1988-1990 vintage. It wasn't very fast, but it got them where they wanted to go, reliably, never having given them any trouble.
As I was in the back seat of the Commodore, I had time to look around. Being October, warm and calm, we threw up quite a bit of dust- actually more of a dustscreen- as we travelled down the dirt road. I knew my friends behind in the Subaru would be in the dust, so I expected them to hang back. But to my dismay, they were doing the opposite- sitting right up our tail, directly in the dust plume and far too close for comfort or the good of their vehicle. I tried to wave to them to tell them to drop back, but they either didn't see or understand, so I gave up and relied on their air filter to keep things in good order.
Unfortunately after perhaps 20kms of the dirt road they started flashing us to pull over, which we duly did. Our driver got out and went back to speak to them. My friend Jim (name changed to protect the guilty) had said the car was running rough and losing power. After a minute, I got out to see what all the kerfuffle was about and had the situation explained to me.
I didn't like the look of this, so I asked Jim to stop the car, he replied it was stopped. As the engine was idling away quietly, I said, "No, turn it off (the engine)," which he again said was off. With the engine still idling I couldn't really understand what he was doing so I again I said, "Turn the engine off!"
At this point, as Jim handed me the keys through the open window with the engine still idling, a very nasty thought formed in my mind.
Preignition. And not just a minor rumble or burp like when you turn and old car like and Escort off, this allowed the carburetted car to run, or at least idle pretty well indefinitely, without an ignition system.
And it had to be caused by the dust. But how???
I asked Jim to rev the engine- it wouldn't really so I had him turn the key back to "on"- no need to start the engine as it hadn't stopped! Revving produced a very uneven result. Luckily the car was a manual so I got him to stall the engine and pop the bonnet so I could have a look.
Oh, dear.
You couldn't really make out what colour most parts used to be due to the brown dust now covering everything. You could see where it went into the air filter intake, as that was the only way into the engine I took off the air filter cover.
Oh, DAMN.
The rubber ring that was meant to seal around the air filter insert had come partly adrift- almost exactly at the air intake pipe position. So the super-dusty air thrown up just in front was able to be piped directly to bypass the filter and enter the engine. Go back and visit the pic linked above. Now visualise it slightly oily as the inside of a carby will be, spray coated with 20kms intense fine dust. The butterfly valves were being obstructed, the venturi was mostly blocked and everything inside the air filter was as brown as outside. The cleanest part was arguably the air filter element itself.
I wondered how to clean it. Well I knew how to clean it, I just didn't see the requisite bits being available 45 kms from Nowra and 20kms up a dirt road.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, a local farmer was nearby, so in vain hope we asked him if he had any carby cleaner. He didn't but with a can of his WD-40 I was able to more-or-less wash out the carby body in-situ. After carefully cleaning out the air cleaner housing, reseating the housing and particularly the rubber seal properly, the engine was restarted and it's 'throat was cleared.' With a stern warning about driving up people's tailpipes especially on dirt roads, we set off for an enjoyable if uneventful 3 day walk in and out of Ettrema Creek.
In the end that little L-series went on to more than 360,000kms seemingly without any ill effects of its attempted choking.
