• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Sticking float valves

Share this page

B

BWillis

Jedi Knight
Offline
Every time I bring the Bugeye out for a drive after being in the garage sitting for a while I seem to run into a problem with the float valves sticking.

This also seems to happen if I am stopped, with the engine running, at a stop sign (if theres a line of cars). The engine will drain the bowls and I have to get out and tap on them with a screw driver to unstick them.

I just wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions?


Thanks!!

Ben
 
Might want to consider changing out the seats as you have changed the needles earlier. Nothing else there to cause the problem.
 
How does the float look? Is there any binding that could cause the float to stick therefore causing the valve to stick?
 
How old is the gas in your tank. Modern gas starts forming a sticky residue relatively fast (couple of months?) StaBil helps. If you have bad gas in your tank adding fresh stuff doesn't help much. Drain and replace.

Marv J
 
Just got back from a drive at lunch. I went ahead and tapped on the fuel pressure regulator (might be the problem as well) and the carbs before leaving and had no problems. I drove about 10 miles or so.

I guess it could be borderline old gas. I'll check it with a smell test this afternoon. I filled the tank up from almost empty about 2 weeks ago.


Thanks guys!
 
If floats check out good the best advice I can give you is drive the car more, neelde valves tend to stick for a moment so from inavtivity. Next time it does, just tap the float lid with a screwdriver handle.
 
Lessee, I imagine you can rig up a little hammer and pivot, then run a string into the passenger compartment, and...

No, maybe not.

Actually one other possibility: check the pivots on the lever that operates the needle valve. Mine was actually binding--I don't remember all the details now, but some part of the lever was rubbing on the float housing under some conditions and preventing the needle valve from closing. Part of the problem was that the pivots were worn, after a brief 50 years of use, so I had to make new pins. I reamed out the hole in the lever that the thing pivots on, made a larger-diameter pin, and all has been well since then. The thing was just too loose.
 
I had this problem with the Mini and took a different and rather unorthodox approach.

Like you, I have Viton tipped needles. I got tired of whacking the float bowls and remembered a device I'd seen on other carbs somewhere. (A friend later reminded me that where I'd seen it on Briggs & Stratton engines). I made little oval loops of very thin music wire and used them to attach the needle loosely to the float arm. The needles I have use "mushroom head" pads on the bottom (not springs) which made attaching the music wire loops easy. Now when my floats fall, the music wire loops are pulled downward by the float arm and this unseats the needle. I haven't had to whack the float bowls since.
 
I bumped up my fuel pressure to the level of "2" as marked on my cheap regulator and it seemed better on my drive at lunch. I'll see how it does in the morning as that seems to be when I have the most trouble for whatever reason.

I think I just need to bite the bullet and send these carbs to Hap for a real rebuild.

Ben
 
Back
Top