Rough idle when hot

[stuart131]

Hello All & Hope youre ok,

Wondered if you have come across this before, 1970 131, single 175 CD2 stromberg. Car starts on the button, runs fine if a bit rattly+ white smoke , however, seems to be mostly on very cold days, when engine hot if you pull up at lights for eg, engine stumbles and if left will conk out. It will always re-start immediately though. I thought it was fuel vaporisation so fitted new fuel pump and routed fuel pipe away from heater hose,rocker cover etc but still happens. Once you give car a couple of revs, the problem clears either completely or for just a while= wierd. Some days doesnt happen at all !.
Whaddya reckon, new carb ? Temperature sensor? can you get rebuild kit for the Stromby?
My Amazon has always flipped the bird to cold weather.....
Any ideas welcome before I shell out £200 on a new carb or even more on counselling.

[Gordon Hunter]

Hi Stuart,

I'm more familliar with the SUs, but did have an early Amazon with a Zenith / Solex downdraught that had similair sounding symptoms. A good strip, check and clean solved the problem (bits of old gasket / crud blocking it up) so, perhaps following the same course of action wouldn't be a bad idea.
If a rebuild kit turns out to be exhorbitant, then I have a couple of spare Strombergs here that you'd be welcome to (one from a running car I broke up)for a nominal donation towards my latest project.

All the best,

Gordon

[stuart131]

Thanks for the reply Gordon, I am extremely grateful to you. Ill give old Simon a buzz tommorow at Brookhouse, see what the damage is and almost certainly be back to you .
Ill strip out the carb tommorow pm and see what gives.
Thanks again , Ill be in touch

very best regards

Stuart

[Martin Burch]

My 140 has a similar carb. It has been rebuilt in the past I think, but started behaving in a similar way a while back. I had a look at the temperature compensator which lives on the side of the carb under a diagonal plastic cover. I gave it a clean and used some carb cleaner spray. It helped a bit.
I am not sure if all strombergs have these devices. Might be worth a try if yours has one.
good luck,
Martin

[amazondean]

The white smoking might only need replacement plugs and points.

My car that I am restoring was white smoking really bad the other week when I struck it up. I replaced the plugs and a new set of points and it cleared it about 90%.

[TomG]

I've been having a similar problem, starts to cough when she get up to temp, and the only thing to solve it is to let her cool down again. Now i've Redexed the whole system, new fuel lines, new fuel pump and checked the heat shield on the carb, new plugs, leads and oil change and new oil filter, no change. So now i've just bought a new carb, (stomberg 175CD), and as soon as i've fitted that, i'll let you know the outcome.

[TomTom]

The only time I've had this was on twin SUs, and they were set much too rich. It got to the point when I was having to stop at traffic lights with the handbrake while revving the accelerator, so the engine didn't die. I had them tuned and balanced and the problem was gone.

Tom