Flooded ..

[grinder]

Took car out on sat night , went to the pub , girlfriend said she would drive it home , she flooded it when trying to start it

as i had beer at this moment in time i was quite happy to leave the car and walk the 2 miles home ( well if we couldnt start it , who is gonna steal it ! )

all the bad thoughts went thru my head , take out plugs , stop fuel pump from working , spin engine .. all the thinks to get a flooded engine working

so we phoned the AA ( this will be good i thought ! )

they sent a company out - got to us at about 12:55 ( midnight )

bloke asked what was wrong and i told him that it was flooded , so he jumps in and runs the starter for about 30 seconds until i told him to pack it in !

so he hums and arrgghhhs over it - until .... ( this is the good bit )

he gets it started after about 5 seconds !! ( i was VERY shocked )

all he did was clamp the fuel line ( from the fuel filter ) with some mole grips and the engine fired first time

just thought i would tell you all , incase you have the same problem - so i now carry a 1.99 pair of mole grips incase this happens again

Thanks

Stu

[Glenn Butcher]

:)

Good stuff Stu! well not good that it was flooded, but good that it got going again!

Do you know what plugs are in it? and how old they are?

[grinder]

have no idea what plugs are in it - or how old they are

but i have had the car 2 mths and they havent been changed !

the car always starts first time ( apart from this time ) - and its sometimes a bit iffy if you take it out for an hour and let it stand for 30 mins ( sort of half cool )

but its going again so i aint bothered - took it out on sunday and it started and ran fine ( apart from getting it sideways on a round-a-bout !!! )

thanks

Stu

[Glenn Butcher]

Stu,

Just for your reference (you may know this already)...

Cold shutdowns, or half warm shutdowns can be a killer. It is the classic, "just moving the car around the driveway" that can cause "flooding", and more seriously "Carbon Lock"

A quote from Atkins Rotary (http://www.atkinsrotary.com/engineQA.htm) Great info. here - well worth a read through.

Regarding Flooding and Carbon Lock:

What had happened to you was known as a carbon lock. When you flood the car, carbon on the rotors gets washed off. in some cases like yours it actually jams the apex seals so that they can not move freely over the protruding areas in the rotor housings and Locks it up. in other instances it keeps the apex seals jammed in so that it freely turns but does not make contact with the rotor housings causing what is known as NO Compression carbon lock.

[grinder]

thats why i always try and run the car until warm - and then shut it down - i hate doing short trips in it ( and i find that you drink even more juice that way )