21-08-2020, 02:50 PM
Helping a friend get his Ruby going this morning.
The priming lever on the pump was ineffective, but it turned out the pump was operating OK from the camshaft lever and the main problem was it was sucking air from the tank, in spite of the tank having "quite a bit in".
He had had the car recommissioned by a local garage last year and apparently they had cleaned the tank out.
The pick up pipe enters the tank about half way up on the front side (unlike photos I have seen of Ruby tanks where the pick up is on the top of the tank, near the gauge sender unit). My diagnosis was that the pipe inside the tank had come adrift from the fitting that looks to be soldered/brazed into the skin of the tank. This would mean that with a full tank the car goes OK, but once the fuel level has fallen below the skin fitting the petrol in the bottom half of the tank is inaccessible, so he runs out of fuel with half a tank to go.
The car starts and runs fine with a tube attached to the pump's inlet and drawing petrol from a can.
Next job would seem to be to remove the tank and see if my diagnosis is correct. Does anybody have knowledge of the assembly and make up of the pick up pipe described? Fuel tanks and naked flames don't mix, so I am debating whether he should press on and remove the tank, or fill with fuel and drive it back to the commissioning garage, whose attentions to cleaning the tank I suspect have been instrumental in causing the problem.
The priming lever on the pump was ineffective, but it turned out the pump was operating OK from the camshaft lever and the main problem was it was sucking air from the tank, in spite of the tank having "quite a bit in".
He had had the car recommissioned by a local garage last year and apparently they had cleaned the tank out.
The pick up pipe enters the tank about half way up on the front side (unlike photos I have seen of Ruby tanks where the pick up is on the top of the tank, near the gauge sender unit). My diagnosis was that the pipe inside the tank had come adrift from the fitting that looks to be soldered/brazed into the skin of the tank. This would mean that with a full tank the car goes OK, but once the fuel level has fallen below the skin fitting the petrol in the bottom half of the tank is inaccessible, so he runs out of fuel with half a tank to go.
The car starts and runs fine with a tube attached to the pump's inlet and drawing petrol from a can.
Next job would seem to be to remove the tank and see if my diagnosis is correct. Does anybody have knowledge of the assembly and make up of the pick up pipe described? Fuel tanks and naked flames don't mix, so I am debating whether he should press on and remove the tank, or fill with fuel and drive it back to the commissioning garage, whose attentions to cleaning the tank I suspect have been instrumental in causing the problem.