it turned out to be a small piece of wet n dry that had found its way into the fuel tank
Somebody had been treating some rust around the filler cap and it had found its way in
Talking to my Dad yesterday who spent 50 years being a mechanic and engineer. He's got some great stories and I thought I'd share this.
He was a engineer at a company with a fleet of lorries. One evening he got a call to go out to a lorry that had broken down on the side of the
motorway. He drove the 100 mile in the breakdown lorry and upon getting there it started first time. Everyone thoroughly annoyed. 3 weeks later the
lorry broke down again and my dad went out to it. He diagnosed a fuel starvation issue but couldn't fix it on the side of the road. Back at the
yard it started first time. Fuel system was inspected and sent out again only for it to work for a month and then it broke down again. He completely
stripped the fuel system and couldn't find a issue. Lorry was sent out again but again broke down a couple of weeks later. MD got involved and
told my Dad under no circumstances was the blinking thing allowed out of the yard again until it was fixed. Much head scratching later my dad wired a
bulb on a stick and stuck it into the fuel tank and found a empty crisp packet floating in the diesel. He scooped it out and the theory goes it was
occasionally blocking the pump intake.
Anyone got any really unusual head scratchers?
Seen that before, one of those silly temporary fuel caps, the ones with red plastic fins where a fin had broken off and blocked the intake on low fuel
levels.
A bugger to spot.
When you cut the fuel pickup always finish the end with an inverted V, stops debris sticking.
[Edited on 31/10/16 by mark chandler]
quote:
Originally posted by Irony
Talking to my Dad yesterday who spent 50 years being a mechanic and engineer. He's got some great stories and I thought I'd share this.
He was a engineer at a company with a fleet of lorries. One evening he got a call to go out to a lorry that had broken down on the side of the motorway. He drove the 100 mile in the breakdown lorry and upon getting there it started first time. Everyone thoroughly annoyed. 3 weeks later the lorry broke down again and my dad went out to it. He diagnosed a fuel starvation issue but couldn't fix it on the side of the road. Back at the yard it started first time. Fuel system was inspected and sent out again only for it to work for a month and then it broke down again. He completely stripped the fuel system and couldn't find a issue. Lorry was sent out again but again broke down a couple of weeks later. MD got involved and told my Dad under no circumstances was the blinking thing allowed out of the yard again until it was fixed. Much head scratching later my dad wired a bulb on a stick and stuck it into the fuel tank and found a empty crisp packet floating in the diesel. He scooped it out and the theory goes it was occasionally blocking the pump intake.
Anyone got any really unusual head scratchers?
quote:
Originally posted by mark chandler
Seen that before, one of those silly temporary fuel caps, the ones with red plastic fins where a fin had broken off and blocked the intake on low fuel levels.
A bugger to spot.
When you cut the fuel pickup always finish the end with an inverted V, stops debris sticking.
[Edited on 31/10/16 by mark chandler]
yep a workmate at my old place had similar with his Volvo estate, after much head scratching a few choice words
it turned out to be a small piece of wet n dry that had found its way into the fuel tank
Somebody had been treating some rust around the filler cap and it had found its way in
my brother couldn't get his 206 started, in the end he gave up and let the garage sort it - after 3 days they eventually decided to look in the
fuel tank and found it was empty 
turned out to be dead fuel sender, so the gauge always showed 3/4 full - my brother then realised he probably hadn't put any fuel in it for at
least 2 months......
Knew a lad who couldn't get his Triumph Herald started and after many hours of head scratching it turned out the exhaust had collapsed internally
After nearly 50 years as a mechanic my favourite tale was when I was an apprentice I was transferred to work with another mechanic from the guy I had been under . We were given the job of fitting a new gearbox to a Mini , on assembling the engine to the box I told this guy he had forgotten a part , After being told not to be so stupid I kept quite. After refitting and starting the engine it was found to have no drive, the workshop manager had a bit of a rant when I told him the idler gear was still on the bench . Needless to say I didn't work with that guy after that
Fwd vacuum toilets no suction on an aircraft one night. Broke the system down section by section no sign of blockage in any accessible area. Decided
to go for the old compressed nitrogen blow through method. No movement. After gradually increasing the pressure to an uncomfortable level a pair of
boxer shorts were ejected at a rate of knots. Along with the accompanying dregs of excrement.
Have also witnessed someone using nitrogen to reverse blow a blocked toilet line with the toilet assembly removed leaving just the open pipe. The guy
had forgotten to get someone to hold a bag over the pipe to catch the 'blockage' and decorated a toilet cubicle a lovely shade of
yellow/brown
Sort of the same lines:
When I was an auto electrician I used to fit alarms regularly. Me and a colleague used to race each other with who could fit them fastest.
We took great pride in our work as these were often top end CAT 1 Clifford alarms.
One day we had a race and my colleague had a customers Bedford Rascal work van to work on. CAT 1 alarms have certian rules of fitment to be approved
and this includes hard mounting the main unit.
In a rush my colleague opened the new alarm box found where he wanted to cut and interact with the van wiring, loomed up the alarm box and mounted it
up high under the dash on the bulk head. It was going to be aclose race, until I heard him shout some choice adult words.
Rascals, dont have bonnets, or a second skin bulk head. He had screwed the alarm unit to the reverse side of the metal panel for the front of the van
and had only noticed after he walked around the front to grab a tool! 4 massive self drilling screws poking out of the front! !
I won the race as he spent the rest of the day flatting back, filling, preping and painting the front of the van before restating the alarm fit.
Luckily the customer saw the funny side and was happy wirth the new paint job as he tidied up some rust spots to sweaten the situation! !!!
I once changed an Alfasud gearbox as a last resort after failing to find any reason for the loud clunking noise under power. The problem was finally found by lying on the car bonnet while it was driving and listening to pin down the source of the noise. Turned out to be loose front wheel studs..
A few years ago, we had the local rally scrutineering in the newly opened VAG dealership.
One mechanic had left a Golf on top of the lift mid way through some head work.
With the carefully placed/labeled hydraulic tappets on the tray by the side of his workstation.
.............................................
idle hands and all that..............
I once had an intermittent issue with a discovery.... Sometimes when you booted it it would strangle and die... It had no manner of work done on it
with things cleaned, changed etc and the issue still remained....
Eventually we figured out what it was... In warm conditions a flap of material from the laminated boost hose would partially detach inside the tube
under boost and block the intake to the throttle body.... as soon as you let off the power it would spring back into place out of the way making it
impossible to see that this was the issue.... groan!
I spent a good 3 hours trying to track down a knock on my Jeep Patriot. If you've seen my previous Jeep rants you know there's been a few knocks. Anyway, jacked it up, wobbled each tyre, lowered it and wobbled with it on full lock both ways. Tried numerous different ways to replicate. Took it for another drive to see if I could narrow it down a bit more, then noticed the pair of welly boots in the passenger foot well knocking the transmission tunnel trim....
I sorted a Ford escort (FWD with Carb) that would do 120 going away from Birmingham on the A14, but, would not do over 60 going to Birmingham.
The clue was in the direction of travel, and, no, the escort was NOT aware of Birmingham.
It was prevailing wind direction and heading into the wind was enough to cause it not to exceed 60.
It turned out to be a dead (oil covered) fly resting on its nose next to the air corrector jet in the carb top. heading into the wind was enough to
cause the fly to pivot off of its nose and across the jet causing the jet to seal off and drain the fuel out of the float chamber and cause fuel
starvation.
I got a bottle poteen for that cure from the customer.
Years back had a Rover 3.5 SDI - stopped at a stop street whilst on holiday in the countryside and when I tried to put it back in gear it wouldn't select any gear. Contacted AA for a tow to nearest town. During the tow i kept trying to find a gear and eventually it freed up - hooted to stop tow. Car drove fine for rest of holiday and when I got home had gearbox opened by the agents - they found a spare bolt floating around in the gearbox - must have been dropped in during assembly. Didn't cause any trouble for about 100 000 km until one day it decided to jam up the selector forks.
Not car related but sort of engineering related - My Grandfather was a Diamond Prospector outside Kimberley during the early 1900's and amongst
the very many tales he told me as a kid one related to how they discovered that diamonds stuck to grease.
The prospectors used what they called a "Concentrator" which was a 2m diameter drum with rotating arms with angled fingers passing through
the slurry that hopefully contained diamonds , this was driven by a hand crank and later by engines and was a type of centrifuge. It had beveled gears
driving the arms and these were greased using a stick with hessian heavily coated with grease on the end - anyway one day his friend was greasing the
gears when the hessian fell off the stick and into the slurry - when he retrieved it some diamonds were stuck to the grease leading ultimately to the
grease table still used in recovering diamonds.
As an aside when I was 9 my Mom and he started prospecting on his farm on the Vaal River and I spent many happy days at the river diggings - very
happy memories.
after taking the top of the carb on my mk1 fiesta to clean the jets (single choke motorcraft carb) the car was drinking fuel and running rich all the
time, about the same as leaving the choke on
took it back into the workshop the next weekend and spotted a small brass rod on the floor (about 2mm dia, 6mm long) - turns out its the weight that
helps to hold hold a valve shut (part of the accelerator pump circuit I think) and without the weight it was sucking in a load of extra fuel....
******
I thought I could hear a wheel bearing on my 106, but after checking it multiple times I couldn't feel any signs of wear, roughness and
everything was free running - besides I'd done the bearings before (all be it 4 years earlier)
so I eventually convinced myself that the diff carrier bearings could be the cause - so I got another box (£40 from the scrapyard after convincing
them that no one else would want a 4 speed box )
swapped it over which took me about 6 hours - took it out to try it and the noise was still there 
so after a fair about of swearing I got a wheel bearing and swapped the passenger side as that seemed to be the most likely - but that still
didn't sort it either
finally changed the drivers side bearing to find the grease inside had turned to a dry powder hense the noise.......
Years ago I worked in a spray shop and we had a work experience lad (tender age of 16) in for a couple of weeks. The paint shop manager gave him some cash and sent him out to buy him 20 B&H Superkings fags. The lad said 'if they don't have those fags what other would you want?'. The manager said 'oh just get me anything'. The lad toddled off and was gone for ages upon his return he revealed the shop didn't have the correct brand so he'd bought the manager a..................pork pie.
quote:
Originally posted by tegwin
I once had an intermittent issue with a discovery.... Sometimes when you booted it it would strangle and die... It had no manner of work done on it with things cleaned, changed etc and the issue still remained....
Eventually we figured out what it was... In warm conditions a flap of material from the laminated boost hose would partially detach inside the tube under boost and block the intake to the throttle body.... as soon as you let off the power it would spring back into place out of the way making it impossible to see that this was the issue.... groan!
I read this on blatchat years ago!
An apprentice asked an older mechanic to explain torque to him. The old guy then said to the apprentice " you know when you go for a pee in the
middle of the night and you have a hard on " The apprentice said "yes" , the old guy then said "when you push your knob down to
aim in the pan your heels lift up, that's torque!"
During my apprenticeship I was in the process of repairing a 20ft seat rail on a Boeing 757. The corrosion was so bad along the length of the whole
rail we had no choice but to change it for a brand new part. The lead time was 3 weeks from Boeing Seattle and the whole aircraft check depended on
this part.
Finally when the courier arrived we were slightly perplexed why he was in a ford connect van.....
"We didn't have a van big enough mate, so we had to cut it into smaller lengths"
Driving home from collecting my newly aquired focus, I could hear a rear wheel bearing was on its way out. After a couple of weeks, I bought a
bearing, replaced it but the noise was still there. I decided the side I had changed was wrong so bought another bearing and changed the other side.
Noise was still there. I thought what are the chances of getting 2 faulty bearings? They were cheap I thought so bit the bullet and bought 2 more
bearings, this time, more expensive ones.
I replaced those, noise was still there. By now, I was !
A day or 2 later I got a puncture on the left rear. Put the space saver on and the noise disappeared! Turns out, after replacing both rear bearings
twice, it was the cheap tyres making the noise all along.
When I were a lad, I had a little 1.1 fiat punto(100000 miles in 2 years, it never missed a beat!) I was heading into town one day, it spluttered and
ground to a halt. Rang my dad and towed me home. Days of changing things, stripping, cleaning etc to no avail. The bastard thing would not run for
anymore than a few seconds. Pulled off the fuel feed, turned on the ignition and a tiny squirt of fuel and that was that. I thought great! It's
the fuel pump! Ripped out the back seat and pulled the pump out of the tank to find the fuel tank empty.
Though in fairness, it wasn't REALLY my stupidity. The gauge read 1/4 tank. It turns out, in fiats infinite wisdom, they fitted a rectangle
float. The float had somehow turned through 90degrees and was hitting the bottom of the tank!
Even after I sorted that, I never let drop below 2/3rds of a tank again!