Weird Problem With My Xs

[Jrod 7]

Just dricing home from woprk and the car loses power, the petrol light was on so thought "f*ck outta petrol" and expected a walk home but i floored it and it carried on like nothing had happened. As soon as i let off full throttle it lost all power again.

 

Now I got it home to my drive and looked under the bonnet, nothing looks out of place no leaks etc. Started it up and it idles as normal but as soon as you try and move it just dies. It seemed like if it wasn't on the second choke it wasn't getting any petrol.

 

Do you think it is just out of petrol or there may be another problem?

 

 

 

I'd test it now but all the petrol station are shut.

[t16ryan 1]

sounds like the jet is blocked on your carb happens alot on the xs had it happen few times on my old xs's

[Jrod 7]

You have to take the emulsion tubes out and the jets are below them am I right?

 

 

What's the best way of getting them out as they are tiny and look really fiddly.

 

 

I have a spare carb so will try that out tomorrow after I put some petrol in just to eliminate that.

 

does anyone know the size of the main jet on the solex carb by the way?

[t16ryan 1]

good way to remove the jets is undo them from the top, and poke a cocktail stick in the top and lift out, clean them both that usually fixes it,

[Jrod 7]

so when you look down the carb the 2 brass bits in the middle next to each other are the jets?

 

 

I hoght they were emulsion tubes.

[macaroni 17 1 Cars]

Pull them out and the jets are beneath them.

 

The Primary main jet should be 117 and the 2ndary 120. I went 130/140 for a good upgrade.

 

Best to give the whole carb a good clean when you take it apart.

[Guest smokinslim]

Use to have this problem with my first xs carb, would usually manifest itself if i dropped into second and really floored it - really embarrassing when you flog it past a lorry and then immediately limp onto the hard shoulder. Gentle throttle to pull off and it would try to die on me, full throttle to get the second chamber of the carb open and you were off with one hell of a jolt. I would have to kick the pedal all the way home, either that or sit for half hour or so at the road side with the engine off and for some reason it would sort itself out until next time. I took the carb apart several times and cleaned as much as poss but to no avail, but did notice that the paper gasket between the top and bottom half had about had it in the end. In the end i got another carb as it was becomming to much of an issue aside from the embarrasment of it.

[macaroni 17 1 Cars]

I cleaned mine out several times before I realised that the little white tube that dangles into the fuel bowl from the top of the carb, isn't actually a tube, but a gauze. It had got to clogged up, the gauze looked solid. Cleaning that helped too.

[Jrod 7]

Ok then,

 

I've got a little game we can play, It's called "what the hell is this bit!"

 

Ok, here is a solex carb.

 

Here is it split in half

 

The top half

 

and the side of the top bit

 

[trogboy 17]

Ok 2nd pic - they are the top of the emulsion tubes. The main and secondary jets are below them i.e. at the bottom of the holes which they sit in. You can reach these witha a long skinny screwdriver and get them out with a cocktail stick as mentioned by t16ryan. The little plastic tube next to the emulsion tubes is the top of a gauze fuel filter as mentioned by macaroni. There is also a similar one behind the copper fuel inlet to stop large bits of crap getting into the needle valve.

 

4th pic - idle jet (this works by varying the vacuum on the idle circuit i.e. different sized holes to bleed in more/less air)

[Jrod 7]

Excellent, thank you for that.

 

*waders off to find a skinny screwdriver*

[Jrod 7]

FIXED.

 

A Massive thank you to everyone who helped me out, car was only off the road for about 12 hours so that's not bad going.