New memeber with a Fulvia

[jackois]

Hi there,

just a couple of lines to introduce myself. I'm Jacko and I hail from Southampton in the UK. I own a 1976 Fulvia S3 in red, currently laid up with fuelling woes... hopefully soon to be back on the road.

[ncundy]

Hi there, I'm from Derby. Hope you sort your problem out, are you on to it ?
Neil

[fulviafiend]

Hi,

I'm over in Lyndhurst, have a Fulvia too, happy to help if i can! :)

FF

[lanciatomcat]

Hi there
I believe I was coming to see your vehicle last year??
Welcome. Sorry you still have a problem with it.
Regards
Tom

[1,6 HF]

Jacko,
Welcome to lancisti! Best of luck with getting it back on the road.

[jackois]

Thanks everybody. The problem started as a mis-fire which I thought was electrically based. Whilst I was basing the trouble shooting on this, I realised that the 'mis-fire' was moving from cylinder to cylinder in a random pattern. This tickled away at the grey matter until it dawned that it was a fuelling problem. I took the carbs off & had a look inside and found everything so gunged up that it was surprising that the car was running at all.

To cut the story short, the carbs were re-built by Gower & Lee, they look like new and are on the dining room table, to be just looked at until the tank returns. having found the carbs blocked, I had the tank off and found this to be full of rubbish & after cleaning, full of pinholes (top & bottom). Unable to find a replacement, it's currently at a repairer on the outskirts of London who thinks he can resurrect it. If not I'll need to install a racing tank from an alloy fabricator. Hopefully it won't come to that.

Since this all started, the car hasn't been anywhere, but has had the engine spun up on a weekly basis to keep the oil circulated & rolled in and out of the garage to keep the brakes freed off.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, though & she should be back on the road for summer....

[ncundy]

If there are not to many holes (and they are not that big) sorting the tank shouldn't be a problem. I had mine stripped and repaired in Nottingham. I coated the inside with POR15 sealant (http://auto.frost.co.uk/search?w=fuel+tank) and painted it with Dinatrol Stonechip (http://www.rust.co.uk/dinitrol-products.cfm). You will probably have to repair the mesh filter on the pickup in the tank as well.

It's worth cleaning the fuel pipes out. You can do this in-situe by blocking off the tank ends and filling with fuel injector cleaner (or some such) from the engine end and leaving for a few days (don't rinse through with water).

When you have everything back together check and set the fuel pressure as the carbs are quite sensitive to this.

[shaun pond]

Jackois,

Thanks for posting your intro to Lancisti, and welcome aboard.

Hope that you get the carbs/fuel tank/etcetera sorted soon, so that you'll be able to get out and enjoy your Fulvia.

Regards

[jackois]

I'm waiting to hear from the people that have the tank. It's peppered with pinholes, but they reckon that they'll manage to save it by treating the metal and then tinning the holes that are there...

when I stripped the various layers of underseal from the tank and the stuck a torch inside it looked like the night sky with all the pin-pricks of light!

fingers crossed!

[Jim Keller]

Welcome to the fold!
What is it about our Lancias and bad fuel tanks?! seems we all have to go there at one time or another.

I am very happy to read you have the paitence for fixing it right, even though it's down for some time, it makes for much longer love affairs! LOL

[jackois]

Hi again,

just an update on the petrol tank situation. After discussion with the experts that had the old tank, I decided that I should source another tank.

I have managed to find a brand new one in Italy, from Ricambi Lancia, at 500 euros plus packaging and it arrived today.

The service was superb with the order being placed on the 27th March, payment clearing on the 29th and delivery this morning, the 1st of April.

The tank was packaged really well & this so impressed me I've taken some photographs which I'll post on a new thread in the fulvia section.

I'm off to give the new tank a coat of Hammerite, while I wait for the new internal tank filter to arrive from Omicron and then it will be time to refit the fuel system and put the car back on the road...

many thanks for all of your kind words & I'll hopefully update soon.