A clogged air cleaner and fuel filter.
September 16th 2019
I decided to find a couple of simple jobs I could do while I'm waiting for a new water pump gasket, so I decided this was a good day to remove the dirty air cleaner and maybe take a look at the fuel filter. This car has one of the early type air cleaners containing a wire mesh which is supposed to be cleaned in kerosene and re-oiled periodically. Having a thin film of oil on the mesh helps any airborne contaminants stick to the mesh on its way through.
After removing the air cleaner unit I just couldn't see a way to open it, it looks like it's completely sealed which I thought was pretty strange for a serviceable part! A quick question to the owners club forum suggested that I was just to soak the whole unit in petrol in order to clean all the gunk out of the mesh. Well that should hopefully work but I'll have to leave it until another day when I have the time to do it.
The next thing I did was to remove the air intake duct from the carburettor to give me access to the dashpot. After unscrewing and removing the damper, it turned out to be half empty so I topped it up with engine oil. In the near future I intend to get the carb fully stripped and serviced but in the meantime it's a good idea to do this job while the dashpot is accessible.
The last job of the day was to disconnect the fuel pipe from the top of the float bowl. This will allow me to remove the small fuel filter mesh that lives inside the fitting. Upon inspection, the filter did have some contamination so a quick wash through with petrol left it looking much cleaner so I refitted everything back together.
The next jobs on my list will be to clean and re-oil the air cleaner and then refit the water pump and radiator.
