Xs Carb Trouble (i Think!)

[miamichris 9]

My xs developed this problem on new years day when I was driving home and has recently got more regular, to the point where its doing it every day on my drive to work and its starting to annoy me..

 

Basically, I could be driving along and the car starts to bog down and wont rev/accelerate without your foot flat to the floor. So when I feel it start to happen and pull up to a junction, it will stall which is a pain in the arse.

 

I think its carb related because I can cure the problem by squirting some carb cleaner into the carb and it will run fine again. I've started carrying screwdrivers and a tin of carb cleaner in the car because its doing this everyday now!

 

Thinking about it, it seems that my first jet is blocking up and starving the carb of fuel so it will only go with my foot flat to the floor and working the second jet? Or could it be something to do with the floats sticking?

 

The plan so far is to take the carb off this weekend and clean it all out and maybe change the fuel filter too in case i've sucked up some crap from the fuel tank.

 

Any other suggestions would be welcomed!

 

PS. If it helps, I know the mixture is running weak/lean because I got the emissions tested for the mot last week and the guy said the CO levels were low and it could do with being richer. I will be going back to get the carb set up/adjusted with him next week hopefully when I get the time. Would this have anything to do with the problem?

 

Sorry for the essay!

[woo83 0]

My rallye used to do this all the time the only way i managed to properly cure it was by replacing the carb. Saying this if you were to strip and rebuild the carb i would think it would have the same effect.

A good trick is to rev it up quite high with the filter off then jam your palm over the inlet (whilst still keeping the revs up) and the just as its about to stall remove your hand. As i say this never cured the problem but would usually perk up enough to get me home.

 

Hope this is of some help.

john .

[miamichris 9]

cheers woo, I think I'll have to look out for a set of gaskets and rebuild the carb properly at some point but hopefully just stripping and cleaning it will make a difference this weekend!

[pugdamo 111 2 Cars]

I had this problem on my old xs,i stripped the carb and found a small hole in one of the floats,the float would fill with fuel and become a sink rather than a float.

Once the fuel chamber was full,the float was to heavy to shut the fuel supply and it would flood itself.

I replaced the floats and problem solved.

I couldnt actually see the hole in the float,i just saw a small wet patch on the bottom of the float,when i dried it it came back again.

[one-lady-owner 1]

I wouldn't get your garage to set up the mixture before you clean/and or rebuild the carb, as if one or both of the jets are blocked than getting it set up with blocked jets, then cleaning them will result in you having to get it done again! When I had a go at the mixture on my xs i just followed the guidelines on the 205xs forum for how many turns from fully in (3.5 rings a bell but please don't take that as fact as it was a little while ago!!) I then drove it round the block, giving it a good full throttle blast and feeling for any hesitation, adjusted it quarter turn one way and went for another run, keep going until the full throttle pull is smooth and without hesitation. After that it pulled like a train right up to when the valves were pretty close to coming through the bonnet!!

[miamichris 9]

I had this problem on my old xs,i stripped the carb and found a small hole in one of the floats,the float would fill with fuel and become a sink rather than a float.

Once the fuel chamber was full,the float was to heavy to shut the fuel supply and it would flood itself.

I replaced the floats and problem solved.

I couldnt actually see the hole in the float,i just saw a small wet patch on the bottom of the float,when i dried it it came back again.

 

I wondered if it might be something like this, where did you source new floats from mate? I'm trying to find a rebuild kit online at the minute and not having much luck!

[one-lady-owner 1]

Go to www.gowerandlee.co.uk, give 'em a ring and they'll provide you with a full genuine solex rebuild kit for not a lot of money, just remember to ask for the right carb as I don't think they'll know what you mean if you say 205 xs to them!! (It's a Solex Z2 32-34, I thought you'd probably already know that but I thought I'd write it down anyway!)

 

 

Edit: Their website is fairly useless for finding things, it's a definite ring them type company, very helpful though and very reasonably priced!!

 

By reasonably priced I mean they wanted £39 delivered for a full genuine rebuild kit when I asked them 18months ago

Edited January 14, 2010 by one-lady-owner

[pugdamo 111 2 Cars]

I wondered if it might be something like this, where did you source new floats from mate? I'm trying to find a rebuild kit online at the minute and not having much luck!

 

A friend of mine had a carb that was knackered,i took it apart and the floats were good so used them.

Not sure whether it would be worth asking in the wanted section whether someone may have a carb that needs a rebuild,may have good floats in it. Dont know where you would get new ones,probably dont make them anymore.

If you get really stuck i can see what bits my friend has left from his xs,it had a nasty meeting with a hedge

[allye 530 3 Cars]

I have a similar problem and my mate (mechanic) said it could be electrical, just to throw another theory out there! He suggested getting hold of one of your finest marygold gloves and put it over the dizzy and the ht leads can go out of the 5 fingers! I'v not done it yet but will do it tomorrow probs and see if it helps. It only happens to me when the car is cold and between 1-2k rpm. Could also be the fuel of course, before I put the new engine back in march the car, and engine had been sitting for some months so so could of dragged some crap up out of the tank(ran it low a few time recently!)

 

Thats all i have to offer!

 

Ali

[RossD 44]

Does this happen only in the few minutes after starting the car? If so it could be the carb icing up. Because of the venturi effect in the carb all you need is a damp morning (Temperatures dont have to even be freezing foir this to happen).

Is the pipe between the manifold and the air intake there and the flap in the intake working?

 

I used to have this problem years ago on my GT!

 

Ross

Edited January 15, 2010 by RossD

[allye 530 3 Cars]

I have a piperx filter on so the pipe from the air in take is not in use! What do you suggest for that?

[miamichris 9]

Does this happen only in the few minutes after starting the car? If so it could be the carb icing up. Because of the venturi effect in the carb all you need is a damp morning (Temperatures dont have to even be freezing foir this to happen).

Is the pipe between the manifold and the air intake there and the flap in the intake working?

 

I used to have this problem years ago on my GT!

 

Ross

 

I thought it might have been carb icing but i'm not sure any more, it feels to me like the first jet is blocking up or the float theory seems likely too. No, doesn't happen at all in the first few minutes, it seems to happen when i'm about 6 or 7 miles into my journey to work. It never happened to me this morning though, so really its quite a randomly occuring problem

 

I bought a new exhaust heatshield and air pipe from peugeot a while back because they were missing so they're there now.

Although i've never checked to see if the flap is working, how would I check this Ross? What actually activates the flap to open?

 

Thanks again for all the suggestions, seems to be a common problem so hopefully I can get it sorted!

[miamichris 9]

I wouldn't get your garage to set up the mixture before you clean/and or rebuild the carb, as if one or both of the jets are blocked than getting it set up with blocked jets, then cleaning them will result in you having to get it done again! When I had a go at the mixture on my xs i just followed the guidelines on the 205xs forum for how many turns from fully in (3.5 rings a bell but please don't take that as fact as it was a little while ago!!) I then drove it round the block, giving it a good full throttle blast and feeling for any hesitation, adjusted it quarter turn one way and went for another run, keep going until the full throttle pull is smooth and without hesitation. After that it pulled like a train right up to when the valves were pretty close to coming through the bonnet!!

 

Cheers for that, i'm going to hold out on the carb set up until I know this is fixed but thats a good guide to get it roughly set up, I must have a look on that xs forum sometime.

[miamichris 9]

I stripped and cleaned the carb with carb cleaner yesterday and blew it all through with the airline so fingers crossed, I'll report back when I've done a few drives to work and see how I get on!

 

If i've no luck, I'll be ordering a rebuild kit and trying that. Cheers for the help everyone

[AndyJ 1]

I bought a new exhaust heatshield and air pipe from peugeot a while back because they were missing so they're there now.

Although i've never checked to see if the flap is working, how would I check this Ross? What actually activates the flap to open?

 

Its driven from intake manifold vacuum, at high vacuum (idle) it directs warm air into the air box, then if you put your foot down it moves to the cold air feed. If you disconnect the vacuum pipe at the manifold and suck on it, you should see the flap moving about.

[allye 530 3 Cars]

sounds like I need ro connect this vacum to the carb some how! (sorry for the hijack) can anyone suggest how to connect the vacum to a piper x air filter?

[AndyJ 1]

sounds like I need ro connect this vacum to the carb some how! (sorry for the hijack) can anyone suggest how to connect the vacum to a piper x air filter?

 

Its kind of irrelevent if you are running a pipercross filter, as it'll just suck in whatever temperature is floating around the back of the engine. Usually you will want to put a cold-air-only feed to the back, so you dont need to have the flap there at all really.

[miamichris 9]

Just an update on this problem, after cleaning the carb out thoroughly I thought it was sorted but the problem happened again one day last week on the way to work

 

It was raining quite hard and the car was very low on petrol that day. So cleaning the carb out has definitely improved it but I have a new idea that there could maybe be water in the tank its been sucking it up when the car is low on petrol, could this be the problem?

 

I'm going to stick a new fuel filter on it and when the car is next low on petrol, I'll drop the tank, clean it out, stick some petrol in it and see how that goes. Could the filler cap possibly be letting water in when its raining hard?

 

Its a bit of guess work this one, just have to keep trying things until its sorted I suppose. I think I'll order the carb rebuild kit at some point anyway, just to freshen the carb up a bit but that will have to wait a while.

[cazzy93 0]

i had a problem with my xs and i rebuilt the carb twice, tried a diffrent carb and fuel tank also had a number of fuel filters and replaced the fuel line, it would run fine 1 minite and only run with choke out or on full revs the next. spent weeks trying to fix it, eventully got a mechanic mate to have a look and we got the timing light onto it and set it to what it should have been and it made it better but decided to check the timming and the cam was 180 degrees out, wonce it was turned it run great, i put a new timming belt on it at the start of the year and it was timmed up then but a crash and the only thing i can think of is it has jumped the timming as belt wasnt as tight as it should have been. so might be worth checking the timming with pins.

[miamichris 9]

Just to update this topic.

 

The problem continued to rear it's ugly head once or twice a week after everything I tried so I left it in to mechanic near my work on Friday morning for a set up and a bit of investigation. Turns out the choke wasn't fully releasing itself on the carb and the mixture was way too weak (as I thought after having the emissions test done before the Mot and the fella told me this).

 

So he corrected the mixture, sorted the choke cable and did the ignition timing, all for £40. Result All seems well so far but I'll keep my eye on it to see how it is next week on my trips to work!

 

I think this guy might be my new mechanic for stuff I can't sort, he was recommended to me because he's "old school" and he certainly seems to know his stuff!