Ah I see what you mean .
Don't wire in two coils at same time but you could have a cold coil ready to swap wires onto and try start after cut out.
An ignition coil doesn't have to have it's body grounded as the body should be insulated from primary and secondary windings

Dmtl land rover carb yellow circle idle cut off.
Blue circle idle mixture adjustment screw

Black plastic tube vacuum advance for distributor which I think not present on your car.

thanks for that; yes, spare coil with croc clips will be ready.

Interesting that carb, it looks a little different to mine, will have to look a the designation on the bottom plate to be sure.

RDS said:

thanks for that; yes, spare coil with croc clips will be ready.

Interesting that carb, it looks a little different to mine, will have to look a the designation on the bottom plate to be sure.

Click to expand...

It is a different carb to your car but thought may give you and idea of what idle cut off solenoid looks like.

Hi RDS and others

It seems you have made progress and have options ready for next breakdown.

From the symptoms i would look at coil first, then run carb fan permanently.
third i would check the fuel pump spacing to make sure your getting full pump actuation movement(various gasket thicknesses).

Tim

Great! Most useful. I was worried for a moment there!!

Hello Tim
Yes indeed and thanks again to all.

Last time I ran the car with the carb fan on, my voltmeter shoed the charging dropped a volt when it was on.

Re the pump, I fitted it Monday and had to stack three ie one of each thickness gaskets just to get to the max 15.5mm projection of the rod. Access to the nuts is poor. I had to use 13mm crescent spanner.

Cheers

Hi RDS,

Can you reproduce the cutting-out issue by running the engine at idle for 45 minutes or must it be driven for 45 minutes?

Have you checked the ignition timing, if you don't have a timing light, you can set it statically, it'll be accurate enough. (retarded ignition timing can cause the engine to run very hot). So can tight exhaust valve clearances, the exhaust valves only get cooled (a bit) when they are closed, so if the clearances are too tight (small) the ex. valves run hotter, so does the cylinder head, could be causing the carb. to run too hot?

Is the carb. cooling fan now operational?

What coolant temperature are you seeing normally? and also, just before the engine cuts-out?

How long has this car had this fault? since you bought it? was any work done just before the fault appeared? did you change anything just before?

Al.

Hi RDS,

In a recent pm, you asked about the faulty tachometer I mentioned in an earlier post that had caused an ignition problem. Unfortunately I can't recall what type of problem it caused (non-start, misfire, engine cut-out when hot?) as this happened 40 years ago I mentioned that I've never had one of these tachometers (revcounters) apart and am not sure how they work or what might have gone wrong.

You previously mentioned that your revcounter didn't work when you installed electronic ignition. I've since looked through some old auto-electrical info I have.

The info I found says that current-sensing tachometers (revcounters) designed for use with contact-breaker distributors will not indicate correctly when used with electronic ignition distributors, because the dwell angle is different between contact-breaker and breaker-less systems.

Instead voltage sensing types should be employed, being connected to the coil negative terminal in the normal way.

I believe some Instrument Repairers can modify the revcounter internals to make it function with a contactless ignition system.

Al.

Hello Al

many thanks for this.

Yes I have heard of the same problem of the electronic ignition kits affecting the tachometers in early MGB instruments (RVI type) but not the later versions (RVC type, the designation is printed very small on the face of the dial) for the same car because of the issues you mention. However, having tried those kits in friend's early MGs, they do work (whether only for a time is yet to be established) notwithstanding the warning.

Anyway, I will run the car without the tacho when I next attack it just to see if there is a correlation in this case: as I said, the immobiliser worked at the tacho to ground the coil.

re your other post; I have not had any chance to get to the car this past week due to weather and parts availability. When the fuel sender float arrives i can work through logically. However certain points I can answer now.

1 the cutting out issue only occurs on the road (apart from once on the driveway)
2 carb cooling fan operation - it operates if I jump it or use my over-ride switch; I have not got the car up to temperature since we last spoke
3 ignition timing: yes it is slight advanced to accommodate modern fuel and the dwell is spot on per the book. Used timing light and good meter.
4 temp of coolant - it climbs steadily to 90deg and then is happy there and the rad fan starts and stops nicely; no variation in temp before cut out. Using the temp gauge on the instrument cluster
5 I suspect that the car had the fault since I bought it; originally it was masked by general temperature problems, eg boiling over, massive increase in temp, blowing the coolant hose off the (damaged) choke unit spigots (now replaced). I did a flush and replaced the thermostat to a lower opening temp and as the rad seemed patchy replaced that too.
6 ignoring the above, the fault "seemed" to start after I fitted an inline filter before the pump (the filter's flow orientation is correct way round!) and the same happened with my 500 too....that cuts out after a similar time. They are good filters and cause no problems else where so I do not suspect them but it may just be a coincidence because they do not seem to act like a shut off valve.
Nevertheless, I am going to delete the filter for a while, though it makes it hard to see fuel flowing.

PS I have tried to reply to the PM, though the contents are the same here, however, the page will not let me.

Best wishes

RDS

Due to pressure of other things only limited progress so far but whilst perusing other posts i found a good photo of the idle solenoid valve courtesy of Napooli Kid here:
https://www.fiatforum.com/x1-9/474559-carburetor-cooling-fan.html

I don't have that item: i doubt it is just missing though; maybe some models did not have them fitted?

cheers

RDS

This is going back a few years now , but i did once stop to assist someone with an overheating X1/9 while in my own one( mid 90s i would guess), it turned out that his heater hoses from the engine were all connected oddly but it looked reasonable, when compared to mine at the time it became apparent that it was feeding hot water back into the engine, it may be something to do with the pipes going to the expansion bottle and heater.

lets be fair this is 25 years ago but might be worth comparing to another car or workshop manual pictures.

Tim

Hello Tim

many thanks for continuing to think about this.

Your comment is interesting because there were indeed cooling issues before this matter came to prominence; indeed those issues may has makes this engine cut-out situation because i usually had to stop well before to let the engine cool down (relying on the temp gauge).

To deal with those issues, I had to change the rad and thermostat, auto-choke housing, and hoses (among other things).

The coolant hoses are a real rats nest in that tight engine bay but I was careful to copy the previous connections for the new installation of hoses. However, copying existing is not necessarily the same as fitting per the book as you rightly imply.

Looking at the manual, the hose spigot exiting the thermostat housing is labelled "union to radiator". I accordance with normal practice, i assume that this hose then picks up the rad top spigot, ie drivers side for r/h/d cars?

I am not sure how easy it is to take pictures of the hoses, label them and post there here - i now it is beyond me!

Anyway, from memory, I do get a flow of coolant through the expansion vessel immediately upon start up.

Hope to get to the car later!

cheers as ever

RDS

Update:

stripping back the carb off the manifold reveals the previous owner or the garage (known to me) shows that again they are allergic to gaskets:
Not only the exhaust gasket missing (found out that a while back) but also
no gasket between the bakelite heat shield and manifold
no gasket between the carb base and the bakelite shield
carb retaining nuts finger tight.
yet there was no pick up when spraying engine start around the joints....

I sincerely hope this is the cause of the running for 20 mins then cut out, cool down for 30 minutes, run for 20 mins, repeat....?

cheers

RDS