I'm having some problems getting my car to start this spring. I've had it tucked away in a barn over the winter. It's a 1969 121 with the B20 A engine and one Zenith-Stromberg 175 CD-2 carburettor. The fuel pump is new, the air filter is new and the carburettor is cleaned. In other words, there is a constant flow of air/gas mixture to the engine. There are nice, blue sparks coming from all four spark plugs and the ignition order is correct: 1-3-4-2 counter-clockwise (actually untouched since it ran perfectly alright when last used in October). But the engine won't ignite. Not even a puff... Even tried tow starting it, but that didn't help either.

I did what I would like to believe was an accurate ignition setting in June last year, using a stroboscope, and the engine ran smooth like a sewing machine for more than 1200 miles after that. If the spark from the spark plugs comes at the wrong moment in time, the engine will not ignite - correct? This is my only lead right now, but before I tamper with ignition settings previously known to be good on a car that won't even start, I'd like to be more certain. Is there a "base setting" of the ignition for which the car will start, so that you afterwards can perform a more precise setting (when the engine is running)? What would such a setting be?

I would greatly appreciate any help, comments, hints and advice here since sitting behind the steering wheel of my Amazon inside a barn simply isn't the same thing...

Thanks in advance,

:: Fredrik

A sincere thank you to everyone that helped me track this one down. The Amazon Season 2003 has now officially started. Is there any more beautiful sound than a spinning B20? I don't think so, atleast not after my experiences this spring.

I tried new spark plugs, but that didn't help (the ones already in were less than a year old). Next step was going over the ignition settings. With the engine at 10 degrees and the rotor in the distributor pointing to the little marking I noticed that although the ignition order was correct, the rotor head did not point to the first ignition cable. REALLY emabarrassing, but having straightened this out the car started immediately. What a relief!

I'm leaving early from the office today to drive up to the summer house. Just me and the car. Again: thanks! Enjoy the weekend.

:: Fredrik

Have you checked the plugs??? That would be my first inclination. Heck, my 120 was running fine yesterday morning... then I made the mistake of turning it off, and it wouldn't start again having fouled all the plugs for no good reason.

I've often had plug problems after rest periods...

-matt

If you have got gas in your float chamber and tried starting fluid also,
it sounds to me like you MUST have fuel and the other major lacks could
be ignition and compression. If you haven't done so already, make sure
that you do have spark. Another problem could be one or more valves stuck
open. (That is the problem I face with my lawnmower in the spring. I have
started putting some oil in the gas in the fall to make sure that the
valves are well lubed at final fall shutdown and it seemed to help - started
the first pull this past spring, even with old gas.)

If you have ignition from the coil wire you might want to pull all the spark
plugs and see if they are relatively clean and if they fire in the air.
If not, that is why your car won't start.

My experience with Volvo storage has been pretty good, especially since the
car was stored in the US and I lived in Panama at the time and had no place
to work on it. On the other hand my experience with Stromberg Carbs has not
been so good. But if you have cleaned the carb, insured that the diaphragm
doesn't leak, etc that should not be part of your problem.

If it was running well last fall the timing must have been at least fairly
close so DON'T change it! Minor changes in timing will affect HOW the engine
runs but usually won't keep it from running and certainly will not keep it from
firing. If it doesn't fire at all that sounds like an ignition problem to me.

One place to check if the ignition is dead or intermittent would be where the
connection goes through the wall of the distributor- the insulation there
is not very durable and may need to be replaced if the screw is shorting
to the distributor case. That will certainly kill your ignition.
--
George Downs, The "original" Walrus3, Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Did you prime the carburettor with fuel? My experience with the mechanical fuel pump is that it does not pump enough at starter speed to get gas to the carburettor when the fuel lines are empty.

Joris

Ditto;

as per recent embarassing call-out to rescue service who took great pleasure in pouring a smidgeon of fuel in there and there smiling as she fired up... ye gads!

Thanks for fast replies!

I'm not sure. When replacing the fuel pump I made sure that there came gasoline from the disconnected (from the carb) fuel hose. I've had the carb removed twice since and both times I had to start the carb-cleaning process by draining the float chamber from gas.

On the other hand, I've not tried pouring fuel into the carb while trying to start the engine. I have tried "start gas" (not sure of the translation here), though. That's essentially the same thing isn't it?

?!?

:: Fredrik

Fredrik;

Since the fuelbowl of most carbs are vented to the atmosphere (pressurized FI systems are sealed), they will always dry out during anything over a month or so of not running the car. Sometimes, the gum and residue it leaves behind can bind up the bowl valve so it may be tough to refill the bowl on start-up.

To answer your question about a "base setting" of ignition timing which will help in starting....obviously if there is no fuel, no amount of playing with the timing will help, but the trick of backing the timing way off (just for starting) has been used by people with ultra high compression engines, or during ultra cold, to help them start for years...in both cases, it fires the cylinders at or even a bit after TDC, and thereby helps the starter by preventing ignitions while the pistons are still on the way up on the compression stroke (during dead slow cranking, so the starter would still be working against the power stroke, since the flamefront and resulting cylinder pressure resulting from ignition BTC is quite fast!). Remember, the engine is really timed in the anticipation of at least idling (much faster than cranking RPM), where by the time the flamefront and pressure develops, the piston has already gone over the top....

After a car is started this way, timing MUST be set correctly, before running engine under load.

Cheers