Rover Sports Register Forum

Hi All,
Just to let you know that I succummed to temptation and bought another P3 last week via eBay. The car is in Melbourne (I live just outside Canberra) so I will need to go down next week and pick her up - she was owned by the one lady since 1968 and visited the UK twice in that time (that's owner + car visited the UK!!).
Appears in much better condition bodywork wise than the one I was going to restore so it will be mainly cosmetic work - may go back and restore Dorothy after Harriet has had her cosmetic work.............

Apparently the car has a fuel starvation issue that I'll need to solve - anyone familiar with this problem in P3's ?

Cheers Neil

Hi Neil,

congratulations on your new car, sounds very good, do you have any pictures? If you have the UK registration number it may be possible to see if it is known to the RSR. As for fuel problems I dont have any first hand knowledge of the problem on a P3, just anecdotal talk of modern fuels and weak gaskets/diaphragms on fuel pumps. Maybe a modern electric pump may help.

Best of luck with your car.

yes an electric fuel pump cures all but the most stubborn of fuel vaporisation problems

Harriet (2nd Rover P3) has arrive here safe & sound. We drove her off the car trailer, but then foudn coolant dripping out, have fixed that now.

Rather than fuel starvation I've found she is running very rich. I have tried to understand some manuals I have on the Solex carburettor but find them difficul to understand. Does the carburettor on the Solex 30 have a mixture screw that I can adjust. I'm getting heaps of black smoke out of the exhaust with the choke right in!!

Thanks Neil
p.s. I'll get some photos when the sun comes out - bit grey today

Neil,

does this help http://www.rover.org.nz/manuals/P3/main5.htm

Hi Neil,
I hope that the info which Paul has already pointed you towards will help with your carb issue. There is info about the carb in the P3 Workshop manual published by the RSR, though I suspect most of it is also on the link. I assume that you have checked that the choke isn't still operating on the carb, even if the control on the dash is pushed fully in.

I know you initially mentioned fuel starvation problems, though this doesn't seem to be an issue at the moment. It has been mentioned earlier in this thread that fitting an electric fuel pump usually resolves fuel starvation problems - the P3 is fitted with an electric pump as standard! In the past I found that my P3 75 would cough back through the carb on an incline with a reasonable bit of throttle pressed. This turned out to the the little glass balls at the bottom of the accelerator jets sticking. Since cleaning this out I haven't had a problem.

Good luck with the carb tinkering - I haven't had to adjust the jets on mine, so can't offer any advise other than what is written in the manual I'm afraid.

Paul

Hi Paul,
Yes, both of my P3's have electric fuel pumps. I have now swapped the dsitributor across from one car as this one seems less worn - also gave it a good clean at the same time. Plus I have taken the carburettor #1 to local carb man who will o a service and refresh for me.
I've swapped the carburettor across as well, gave it a good clean with arb cleaner & a blow out with ompressed air. So, all shoulde reasonably good - but not yet!!!

She starts easily on a bit of choke & I get her warmed up on a fast idle. Then if I try to accelerate the engine if seems very reluctant to rev with lots of coughing and spluttering. I have checked that the timing advance is working with a strobe light and it seems good, plus I am confident that it is set to the correct time - though I have difficulty reading what is on the flywheel

So, I'm now going to have a look at the balls in the accelerator pump you mentioned - sure hope this works as I'm running out of ideas!!

Regards Neil

Hi Paul,
I cleaned the glass ball valves in the accelerator pump part of the carburettor - hasn't made any difference

Hello Neil,

Have you checked the fuel line from the pump to the carb? Also have you cleaned out the screen at the end of the fuel line attached to the carb? By the way it is worth following the manual with respect to the adjustments to the slow and fast idle screws.

Best of luck
Dirk in the States

Hi Dirk,
I pulled the fuel pipe out of the fuel tank - it looked ok-ish. But closer examination reveled that it was almost totally blocked. Took us almost half an hour with carb cleaner & a wire (soft one) brush to get it clean.........62 years of gunge had set.....gone now.
So, fuel supply problem now solved - plenty of clean petrol reaching the carb

But (you knew there would be one!!), the car will only run on choke - so I have messed something up in the carburettor when I was taking it apart & cleaning it - any ideas? One thought strikes me - the main jet in the carb appears to have another jet peice that screws back into it - should this be screwed home or just loosely attached I wonder? I screwed it home (it was loosish) and now I am wondering if I have shutoff fuel flow in my zeal to tighten things up?

Regards Neil Henderson