Peter-John Michael,
Congratulations on being the proud owner of one of Jaguar’s best saloons, I
might be a bit biased since I’ve got two of them!
My MK-I’s have SU’s, but I’ve experienced the same thing. My '59 is my daily
driver and I found that I was having problems with the fuel “boiling” in the
lines on hot days in traffic. I came to this conclusion by associating the
symptoms of poor running, exhaust smoke and fuel smell (due to fuel
overflowing and running out the vent pipes) with watching bubbles go through
the glass bowl of the fuel filter.
I tried several things to solve this; fist I put in “groose jet” needle and
seats, I discovered that different brands of fuel “boiled” at different
temperatures so I used a the brand with the highest “boiling” point, I put
on a larger mechanical fan. All of these things help a little, but did not
solve the problem.
What finally fixed it was a new fuel pump! I changed the fuel pump to the
Faucet brand, to solve a problem of leaning out at full throttle (my engine
is actually a transplanted and modified 4.2l with two HD8 SU’s) and my
boiling problem went away.
I had never checked the fuel pressure on the original pump, it should be
about 3.5 PSI (I assume you guys in Sydney use bar, hopefully you or someone
on the list knows the conversion from PSI to bar). If I had to bet my
pressure was way to low… that would explain running lean at high fuel
delivery volumes and boiling easily.
If I were in your shoes I’d replace the needle and seats with the Groose jet
type (these are the gizmos that the floats press against to stop fuel flow
into the bowl, the Groose brand has a little spring loaded ball on the tip
of the needle to help it seal better, and they work well) and check your
fuel pressure.
Regards,
Mike Waldron-----Original Message-----
From: Peter-John Michael [mailto:pjmichael24@hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 6:26 AM
To: saloons@jag-lovers.org
Subject: [Saloon-lovers] Carburettor Mk 1
Dear All,
I have a '57 Mk 1. I don’t usually drive it in city traffic but I couldn’t
resist today given the great weather in Sydney.
It was purring all day however after some heavy bumper to bumper stop start
traffic the idle began to drop off to stalling and required balancing on th
throttle to prevent stalling (with some nice plumes of smoke to boot).
I got the car to my garage and parked. Two hours later I took the car for a
drive and it ran like clockwork.
The car is running the original Solex units and I understand that these can
be somewhat temperamental. This evening its emitting a quite a heavy fuel
smell (more than usual). It is a little baffling given it was tuned about a
week ago.
Any ideas?
Best Regards
Peter-John Michael
'57 Mk 1 2.4 Litre
Sydney, Australia
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