Not sure if this is the answer or not - I've seen the several
fuel-related suggestions and that seems like a possibility.
However...once had a Datsun 510 sedan out in a sleet/snow/rain mix and
could drive a few miles til the engine would stumble badly and either
quit or run so poorly it might as well have. Pulled over for a few
minutes to try to figure it out - and to panic as I was in the middle of
nowhere in the middle of the night.
After said panic, tried to start it and it ran fine for a short while.
Then same thing again. Precipitaion let up and the problem disappeared!
Turned out that the Datsun was not equipped with any sort of pre-heater
for the carb air intake. Cold, wet air was entering the air cleaner and
clogging the carb with ice. As soon as I pulled over, the rising heat
from the engine melted the ice and it started fine - until I picked up
speed, forced more cold, wet air into the carb.
Datsun came out with a fix for the problem in later models, but don't
know of one for the TR. Datsun's was an enclosed air filter housing with
a single inlet - they put a heating element on the inlet chute. How do
you do that on a TR? If you want to test for this, I suppose a test run
on a dry day (cold is okay - just not wet too) would be a good
indicator. Might as well do this before you bother to try the fuel
suggestions. If it doesn't work, you haven't lost anything. By the way,
it doesn't have to be very cold...I seem to recall it happening in the
30-40 degree range...please, no wisecracks from you Floridians and
Californians.
If it turns out that that this is what happened to you, perhaps another
lister has a solution. I don't know how you can route the intake air
past anything to warm it up before it goes into a TR-type air cleaner.
Hope this helps. Good luck, and let us know what you find out.
--
Michael Ferguson
Vernon CT
Chad Stretz wrote:
>
> Cold and wet, exactly! Can you help?
>
> Michael Ferguson wrote:
> > What was the weather like? Cold and wet, perhaps? If so, I may have a
> > possible reason.
> > --
> > Michael Ferguson
> > Vernon CT
> > Chad Stretz wrote:
> > >
> > > Fellow lister Tony Zager and I drove to St. Clair MO to pick up some
> > > parts. On the way home, my TR6 did some wierd things.
> > >
> > > We were able to drive at highway speed for about five minutes or so, and
> > > the car would sputter and die. After it sat for a moment, (sometimes as
> > > little as 20 seconds) it would start right up and go again for about
> > > another five minutes. The longer we sat, the longer we could drive
> > > until it died again. A 2 hour trip turned into 6 1/2!
> > >
> > > We replaced all of the parts we could with the spares I had in the
> > > trunk; points, condenser, distributor cap, still no difference. Fresh
> > > fuel didn't make a difference, either.
> > >
> > > If I revved the engine hard after startup, it would run all the way to
> > > 4500 rpm or so, but wouldn't stay for very long. It seems to idle with
> > > just a slight misfire, as long as there is no load on the engine.
> > >
> > > Where do you folks think I should start? Carb diaphragms? Fuel pump?
> > > Coil? Priest?
> > >
> > > Any ideas welcome,
> > > Chad Stretz
> > > 73 TR6
|