[ilangop]

Originally Posted by DHABHAR.BEHRAM

Dear Abhishek / Karthik / Ilangop - The ignition switch has two wires going to the ignition coil. One wire goes to the input of the ballast resistor (bottom connector). The ballast resistor is the part which is attached to the body of the ignition coil. It allows you to use a 6 volts coil in a 12 volts system.Best regards,
Behram Dhabhar

Yes Sir, The second wire that passes current through the ballast resistor had come off. The ignition switch is ok. This should have happened while the Gas kit was removed upon Abhishek's request. I experienced the same situation when a rat had bitten off the wire to the ballast resistor. This case was similar.

Still the engine was not able to rev up fast. After removing the filter we had to first cut some length of damaged petrol hose and fix it. After removing the filter we were able to see that there was no petrol coming out off the jet. So opened the top portion of the carburettor to clean the jet and nozzle. After a few cranks the engine revved up and everything seemed ok. So we took the car out. Again the engine shut down after about 1Km. I presume rust or dirt in the fuel tank is blocking the fuel flow. It was already 9:30 at night, so we didnt want to experiment more. So we towed the vehicle to a friend's place and left home. Conclusion - For sure the carburettor has to be removed and cleaned. Lot of soot deposits and the secondary butterfly valve is stuck. No clue what to be done if there is still rust coming with petrol. Can we have an additional filter after the pump?

[ObsessedByFIAT]

Hello Behram Sir!

Thank you for your valuable inputs! I am still very new to 118 NE and this might have caused the vagueness in the putting down the issue. However, I am really greatful to you for your quick reply!

Yesterday, Ilango and one of his friends (Thanks a bunch for coming with me and without a second thought working on it selflessly!) were kind enough to accompany me to the place were the car was. Ilango and his friend quickly got down to the task and at first found that the connection that holds up continous running of the engine was loose. (I think, this is exactly what you have expalined above, right?).

The other part of the issue was, even after requesting the person holding the car currently, from whom I will be purchasing the car did not service the carb.

Ilango cleaned the carb and the car fired up just fine! We started off with the car and after approx 1 KM, the car stalled again and now does not want to start. As per Ilango, the fuel is reaching the carb, but is not sufficiently passed ahead of it and that is causing the issue and also heats it up considerably.

Also, in the process, we found that the battery of the car was indeed week and could not crank it more than twice.

I would also like to request Ilango to put down his views so that if I have mistaken at some point he can correct it.

Thanks a lot everyone for the enthusiasm and egerness to help!

Cheers!

Just saw that Ilango has already replied to the thread!!! thanks a bunch buddy!

[DHABHAR.BEHRAM]

Dear all - I do not have time to type out everything but the jist is as follows. 99.9% of the time when the 118NE stalls, there is no fuel reaching the carburettor. The best way to verify it is to observe. In case of the Hitachi carburettor, there is a round glass window. You can see it by sitting in front of the grille and look through the holes where the horns are located. You should see fuel upto the center of the glass. Rock the car gently to see it moving about inside the carburettor. If there is no fuel, the float will be down which you will see as a black slanting line through the glass. However, the Mikuni carburettor does not have this window so you have to physically see petrol squirting through the inlet pipe when you crank the engine. The best way to solve this dilemma is to connect the carburettor by gravity feed. Just put a jerry can on top of the car, siphon fuel in the pipe and connect it to the carburettor inlet. Be careful here, I have drunk petrol many times, it is a terrible experience. Now fuel has to flow into the carburettor. If the car runs fine, the problem is fuel supply. For fuel supply, I will give complete details of the fuel line plumbing / routing / use of electronic fuel pump / correct place to mount, everything. If not, when the car is used on LPG / CNG (all useless junk in my opinion), the carburettor gets clogged up due to prolonged non use which can cause these problems. For Mikuni application, I suggest you use the process of elimination. Use a carburettor from a perfectly working Maruti Zen / 800 / Esteem and try it out. For Hitachi, be very careful, partsare just not available.

And by the way, the "filter" next to the air cleaner is not a filter, it is a "vapour separator". It is made by Pierburg Germany. There is a huge story behind it which only I know. I'll write it and post when I get time.

Best regards,

Behram Dhabhar

[ilangop]

Behram Sir & Karthik,
I would like to share 1 more observation that came to mind now, when Behramji had explained about the vapour separator.
The car didnt have a vapour separator. The fuel from the pump is directly fed into the carb. The carb doesnt have a return line either. And the pipe from engine bay to the tank is left open. Could this be a reason for the car to halt after a Km. by the way, the carb is a Mikuni one. Initially after cleaning the carb, we noticed fuel being squirted from a nozzle in the primary venturi. Later on that didnt happen, rather the squirting was discontinuous. Not following the opening of throttle.
And in the previous post I intended to ask if a petrol filter can be put in place between the pump and the carburettor to control the entry of dirt into the float chamber.

[ObsessedByFIAT]

Thank you once again for your valuable inputs! It is really commandable to be able to write so much information within the tight schedule of yours!

Will need to take assistnace from Ilango (if he is free tomorrow evening) to check the things as directed.

Originally Posted by DHABHAR.BEHRAM

The best way to solve this dilemma is to connect the carburettor by gravity feed. Just put a jerry can on top of the car, siphon fuel in the pipe and connect it to the carburettor inlet. Be careful here, I have drunk petrol many times, it is a terrible experience.

Best regards,
Behram Dhabhar

This happened to me yesterday and trust me, it is really terrible. I can still taste petrol in my mouth, yuk .. :(

Cheers!

[funkykar]

Behram sir: My december 95 NE has a Mikuni. It too doesnt have a vapor separater component. There is a return line though and is connected. It doesnt have a mechanical pump nor the regular petrol filter around the engine. It has an electric pump and a petrol filter (don't know if its a filter or a vapor separator) at the rear. All this setup including the missing vapor separator around the carb looks very original to me merely by the looks of it (I mean doesnt look modified).

I am assuming, the filter what my mechanic told at the rear (I did not have a look at it though), would be the vapor separator. When I replaced the petrol tank, noticed that there are total of pipes connected to it. One from there the petrol is sucked to the carb, the other 2 are returning petrol. Out of the 2 returning petrol pipes, if I remember correctly, one of them had a decent return flow, the other had very little return flow.

[ilangop]

Karthik,
I think, the NEs that came with a return line in the carb dont need a vapour separator.
Sir,
The open steel pipe that should have been connected to the vapour separator anyways leads back to the fuel tank. So can we replace the accelarator pump with a fuel return type and connect a hose between the Acc pump fuel exit and the open steel pipe. Hope this setup can prevent vapour lock as well prevent heating up of fuel. Please let us know if this idea makes sense and we can go ahead.

[DHABHAR.BEHRAM]

Dear all - HaHaHa, even within my tight schedule, I think these queries merit a reply. I have to give you complete details of the solution to the problem of "hot weather percolation" for you to understand and appreciate the "Vapour Separator" syndrome. So, here goes.

The car was introduced in January 1987 in the market. During those days, the parts were all imported from NISSAN Japan. The origional carburettor was HITACHI. It did not have any fuel return system. It had a cylinder block mounted mechanical fuel pump, a metallic fuel line passing just behind the engine fan with two small flexible pipes at the pump outlet and carburettor ends. We had introduced a fuel filter supplied by NISSAN just before the mechanical fuel pump. The fuel pipes were 6 mm in diameter. With this system, the car had tremendous fuel feed issues due to a phenomenon called "percolation" which prevented fuel from reaching the carburettor as the fuel would turn to vapour in the fuel lines / filter / pump. I was told to solve this problem in April 1988. I solved it on 12 May 1988. During those days, 118NEs used to take upto 5 hours to go from Khopoli to Lonavla, a distance of 7 kms due to persistent stalling. On 12 May 1988, I covered these 7 kms in 6 minutes, the car went up the slopes like a bomb. There used to be "self styled mechanics" standing on the ghat road who used to make a quick buck from people whose 118NEs used to stall. They knew my brown test car MGQ8174 which was the only 118NE in those days which did not stall on the ghat. They used to ask me for the solution. The solution was to provide optimized and correctly oriented fuel return system alongwith a full time operational electronic fuel pump, delivering 980 cc per minute. Therefore, I had to shift the rear portion of the exhaust system from the RH side to the LH side so that I could mount the electronic fuel pump in the underfloor area. Therefore, in later models of 118NEs, you see two relief curves in the rear panel in front of the rear bumper. The RH cut was used for diesel cars and the LH cut was used for petrol cars. The fuel pipe goes from the fuel tank to a fuel filter mounted underfloor instead of in the engine compartment, the electronic fuel pump is mounted at 15 degrees angle in the rear floor area. Tnstead of the return tee at the carburettor, you can use the vapour separator but it is not absolutely essential. The vapour separator is nothing but a tee connection with 20 cc of volume built into it with a small ball valve used as a non-return valve. It was suggested by Pierburg in February 1989 and it was given to me for testing. I was told to test it with the mechanical fuel pump. I informed that it will not work for which I was fired. Finally, I went for the test, stalled the car and came back. My explanation was simple - "Sir, vapour separator will work if there is vapour in the fuel. THat means that there should be some liquid fuel from which you separate vapour. If there is only 100% vapour, what will you separate"? Nobody listened to me. Therefore HaHaha.

IF ANYTHING IS CHANGED IN THIS SYSTEM, THE CAR WILL NOT WORK. After I left PAL in 1994 and joined M&M, during 1996, Peugeot engineers who were handling the 118NE at that time thought of eliminating somethings. I remember that I went to Kalyan plant one day and told them that "if you remove this connection, the car will stop at the second curve / if you change this dimension, the fuel temperature inside the carburettor will increase by these many degrees centigrade". They were amazed and promised me that they would not change anything.

I suggest you check the complete plumbing and see that your car confirms. During LPG / CNG fitting, somebody would have done all nonsensical things which will make your life miserable now.

As far as the Mikunin carburettor is concerned, I suggest you open it and overhaul it completely. Prolonged period of non use ruins the internals. All parts for Mikuni are available. Please use Zen / Esteem venturis as they come as close to the original ones as possible.

Best regards,

Behram Dhabhar

[ObsessedByFIAT]

Sir,

Thank you yet again to share your experiences and the correct way out of the situation!

@Ilango:
Thanks for your time on the phone and really really appreciate your help and enthusiasm with which you have been helping me through out the process!

Cheers!

[funkykar]

^ Thank you Behram sir for the very detailed and logical explaination. I was yearning to know why the later models have the silensor on the LHS, now it is very clear to me. We now understand not to play around with this entire system.

By the way, on my Mikuni carburater, I got the float jet replaced yesterday evening. It started idling super smooth and was running pretty well. The engine was pretty warm when this was done.

Today morning, I start the car and it starts with a single crank without any fuss. However, when I accelerate, it switches off. Yet, its starts at a single crank. The first few minutes today morning was horrible. It was very difficult to get it moving. Had to start the car 2-3 times and accelerate real hard to warm it up. Once I got it moving, for about 2-3 kms, it was very sluggish. After which, slowly it started running fine. Any inputs on why this is happening?

[DHABHAR.BEHRAM]

Dear Karthik - the carburettor has 5 different circuits which come into operation as required. In your case, the transition from idling to main seems to be blocked. Also, if the venturis are clogged (you will be amazed at the amount of dust which will come out), this thing will happen. Remove the carburettor, dismantle the throttle plate and thoroughly get it cleaned from a person who understands what he is doing and wants to work properly. This tribe is getting rare so be careful. Clean all the small cross holes in the throttle plate first with brake oil, then with petrol and finally with a carburettor cleaning spray, put all new packings including between the throttle plate and the main body, replace both venturis (use Esteem / Zen venturis only) and then see the difference. There are many things which a Mikuni carburettor can teach you, so look for the learning experience.

Best regards,

Behram Dhabhar

[funkykar]

^ Thank you sirji.

By default, me nor my cars are blessed with educated mechanics who work on old cars. My rule of thumb is to go to my local mechanic, just 2 kms away from home and get any work done. I generally tell him what to do and what not to do. I am happy that he doesn't screw up anything on my cars. He is not very knowledgeable but listens to whatever advices/ideas I share and doesn't have an ego problem. He knows stuff just by knack.

When something cannot be fixed at his level, I try and find the REAL mechanics, who know their stuff. I guess with the information you have provided, its time to visit the real mechanics. Thanks again! I will let you all know how my carb thing goes in next few days.

[ilangop]

Originally Posted by DHABHAR.BEHRAM

Dear all - HaHaHa, even within my tight schedule, I think these queries merit a reply. I have to give you complete details of the solution to the problem of "hot weather percolation" for you to understand and appreciate the "Vapour Separator" syndrome. So, here goes.
....
The RH cut was used for diesel cars and the LH cut was used for petrol cars. ...

Best regards,
Behram Dhabhar

Sir,
Here is 1 reason for another Hahaha. Till I read this post I was with the dream of having twin exhaust pipes in my 118 NE.

Anyways, we will be spending some time this sunday on Abhishek's NE. Will post the experience in the coming days.

Karthik,
I have procured a Pricol made Thermistor (Temperature switch. I saw a big question mark in the shop keeper's face when I asked him for 118 NE thermistor. Then he reconfimed if I wanted a temperature switch, where the fact is it is a thermistor and not a switch). Will courier it in a day or two.

[funkykar]

Today, I did some shopping. I bought some coolant(car running on water as of now), points, condenser, plug wires, ignition coil, the 2 venturis(MGP). I will be replacing all the parts and getting the carb worked on with the instructions given by Behram sir. Will be doing this some time in next couple of days.

The plug wires and ignition coil, I am replacing as recommended by the LPG guys to get the car run on LPG even better. I know most of them don't like the usage of LPG due to its cons. But, myself being an ardent fan of LPG, I would like to keep both the LPG and petrol options in the best possible tune.

I also had another question. Even though my carb doesn't need the vapor separator component, is it still okay to install one? would it screw up anything if added?

[riteshpawar]

I used to drive a 1992 118NE with Factory AC and kept it stock condition. It used to give me a good 10-12 kms in the city and 16 kms on highways. I used to actually live in this car and my first and last love.

Anybody wanting to sell a 118NE please do contact me.

Ritesh - 9821276763