Another Strato Silver Fiesta...
... this one belonging to my mate. An earlier story reminded me of this.

I used to work with a mate of mine who I shall refer to as Andy, for that is his name. Now, Andy had a 1.1 Fiesta in the aforementioned Strato Silver. It was a bit rough and rusty, but it could go and it could stop, and that was all he needed. One day, Andy came into work and asked me if I could take a look at his car. "The throttle doesn't work at all, the choke works like the throttle and it's stinking of petrol" he said.

Popped the bonnet, and had a look. Hmm, the air filter is lying at a slightly funny angle, wonder why? Maybe the screws are loose. No, the five screws that hold the top half of the carburettor onto the bottom half were loose. When the engine was running the pipe that was supposed to be filling up a little tank with a float valve (like a toilet cistern, really) with a limited amount of petrol was pretty much just spraying it over the top of the engine - and by chance mostly getting it into the hole where the rest of the carb should be.

Eep.

A bit of Loctite on the screws, and it didn't come loose again - but it could very easily have sprayed it onto the hot exhaust manifold.
(gordonjcp, Sat 24 Apr 2010, 17:54, Reply)