Hi there,

I am by no means a car parts guru but would like to get some help My father has a FIAT X19 which is his labor of love and he is getting so frustrated with the fact that the car is cranking when you turn the key, sometimes it will start for a bit but then it stops again and doesn't start again.

Despite the fact that he says everything is ok and cannot understand what the problem is and that he is apart of this forum, I would like to help as well

He is banging his head about this and seems to think it could be the carb or the whole carb itseld, he has been fiddling with the settings, took the carb out but doesnt seem to see anything wrong, can anyone help with this.

I love the car as much as he does and would love to see his face when the problem is solved! Anything that can help would be much appreciated.

hi, I had similar problems myself, it would start but was very rough! It seemed ok at high revs in neutral but was not drive able at all, especially with the choke on. After months of trying to figure it out, I found the two half's of the carburetor were warped and sucking raw fuel from the float bowl and air (adjusting mixture screw made no difference) after removing the gasket and placing the two halves together, you can sandpaper the bottom part of the carb with the float bowl on a flat piece of glass but the top half is more difficult but I got it flat enough with a flat strip of metal with sand paper wrapped around it. hope this helps but it definitely sound like a vacuum leak to me especially if the engine races before dying

Sounds like there is dirt in the fuel bowls. You can pull the carb air screws and idle screws from the top of the carb (under the air cleaner) and check if the Jets on the bottom are plugged. If so, you can clean them and see if it makes a difference.

It is also worth changing the fuel lines to new.

I had a similar problem, and it turned out while the hose looked on on the outside, on the inside they had started to crumble and bits of fuel line randomly blocked the carb, I would clear them and then it would come back very quickly.

Hope this helps, I was banging my head for a long time on that one.