Apparition

How easy it is to locate a fractured fuel pipe on any car? That is; when it isn't immediately suspected and is discovered after the car returning to the garage 3 times.
Symptoms : Engine just stops at any time it chooses, no other warning, then is a right b*st*rd to start again. Will stop at either 60mph or just slowly leaving a junction, speed doesn't seem to matter.

Just wondering if the garage my brother takes his car to are doing their job properly.
Yve

mart360

Hmm,,,

not easy but....

it would help if we knew what type of car.. fuel injected or n/a

i had the same once, the car would run fine until you reached a set speed, then the vacum placed on the fuel system, pulled in air instead of fuel...

first of all check all non metalic fuel lines, and then any vac advance lines.

you could disconnect the fuel line and do a pump flow toest to eliminate that,

the other method is to drain the tank, and then pump it full of compressed air, (low psi at fisrt to hear the source of the leak)

Mart

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Finding a fuel pipe sucking air is like a needle in a hay stack - I had a problem with my landy sucking air in on the change-over valve (twin tanks). Used to run fine until I floored it for more than 10seconds and then it would die, also the float needles on teh carbs kept sticking and overflowing for no reason (cause was aerated fuel due to the leak)...took me a fair bit of messing about before finding the cause...pretty much doing the list mart said above

fast bloke

not too hard to diagnose, but really really difficult to find - A M8 had a similar prob on a boat - After much getting towed back to shore, I got my bro-in-law to stick the carbs through a powerstation boiler x-ray machine. Turned out there was a miniscule crack at the inlet side of one of the carbs - when the vacuumnmnmn(sp) hit a certain pressure it started sucking pure air. The machine he used costs about 20 million quid, so probably isn't available to Joe Mechanic

Apparition

Many thanks chaps.
I shall pass on your comments to my bruv. Garage reckon they'll have it fixed by Monday, £250. Its a Micra (diesel ) , he's a driving instructor and this has made a huge hole in his income.
We were just wondering whether the garage were doing their job correctly and from the above comments it looks likely they are up against it .
Thanks
Yve

tarmac terror

iTrader: (2)

Has he ruled out the simple stuff like blocked fuel line / filter???

Has he recently changed to using bio-diesel which will break up the deposits left in the the fuel system by fossil diesel? This usually leads to a blocked filter and can re-occur immediately after replacing the blocked filter. Happened to me on changing the Leon to Bio-diesel took 3 new fuel filters to clear the problem for good, but I was expecting it.

Just a thought.....

TT

Jap2Scrap

Get a crawler trolley and a tealight candle. Light the candle and place in the centre of the trolley. Place the trolley at the back of the car and, with your fingers in your ears, give the trolley a gentle push under the car with your foot. Keeping your fingers in your ears pace alongside the car in time with the trolley's passage underneath. The point where the car rises sharply and a muffled explosion is heard denotes the source of the leak.

Job's a good'un

Vegescoob

Ah, the good old Three Mile Island inspection technique.