QuestionHi David, its very kind of you to take the time to do this.
I have a 76 TR6, beautiful car, which is luck as at the moment all it does is look good.
It has been sitting for 2 months outside and when I tried to start it, after charging the battery, it wouldnt start, suspecting a bung fuel pump I took the opportunity to remove the carbs fuel pump and dizzy and reinstall the original injection system, which I had removed two years ago due to unreliable motoring, determined to get it working despite advise to ditch it and rude things people said about Jo Lucas I spent 4 full days trying to get the blasted thing going, managed to evoke a cough, might have been a single fire, but no starting, eventually I gave up and reverted back to the carbs, which involves distributor drive gear distributor, carbs manifold and fuel pump which I replaced gaskets and diaphragm in this past weekend, also managed to empty the gas tank more or less so have topped up with fresh fuel. The problem now is I still cannot get it to start, cranking for far too long to be any good for the atrarter motor, but nothing.
when I replaced the dizzy there was some confusion as the picture in the haynes manual is different from the way the distributor drive gear appeared to be in, so I went with the manual version. With the dizzy installed, the rotor would appear to line up with cylinder No. 1 when the 11 deg BTDC mark on the front pulley lines up with the timing indicator, and the points just start to open and if the ign is switched on an audible spark can be heard, I havent ruled out the distributor being installed 180 out of sinc but cant understand how the timing could appear to be correct if it is 180 degrees out. I stuck a screwdriver in the number one high tension lead and held it up to the rocker cover bolts and cranked the engine and saw a spark, replaced the points and the condenser for good measure, still nothing. Anyway, I have the twin SU's with float chambers full of gas,cranking..... nothing. so I pulled the tops of the su's emptied the oil cleaned the inside and outside of the aluminium things which go up and down, replaced the oil in the dash pots, checked the butterflies opened and closed with accelerator, tried again, nothing. By turning the distributor right round to one side I did manage a backfire, and by pumping the accelorator I get a spurt of unburnt fuel blown out the carb throats, but the bugger wont start or even fire or pretend to start. Is there anything else on these carbs which can be pulled apart and inspected?
Cannot think of what might be wrong or what to do next, have run out of ideas, would take it to a mechanic if I thought he might have a clue where to start but fear hed just pull the whole engine down, put it all back together, hope it worked and charge me two kidneys three arms one leg and a TR6 worth of cash.
I also found the kill switch which in injected cars turns off the elecric fuel pump in the boot should the car crash, anyway it was faulty so i bypassed it with an electrical connector, I think Ive done this before, so cant imagine it disrupts any of the other electrical system?
I also took off the rocker cover and checked each valve is going up and down, I know the cams turning as the distributor is, I know thats engaged as theres oil pumping around the engine.
In short, I have spark I have fuel, I think its getting into the hot part of the engine and I think I have timing. Any clues would be greatly appreciated.
Answerwell first, the only TR that was fuel injected was a TR5 and not imported to the US. Maybe that is what you have? Needless to say if you were having problems with it it is history. second, you can take the #1 cylinder (first in line from front) and should look like the bottom one on distributor it will be 0 on timing mark not 11 deg. line up 0 mark look at the rotor it should point straight down to the bottom of the dist. if all is like this it should start. if the car was a real fuel injected TR the fuel pump for the injection system is way too much for a regular carb system. it needs to put out only about 3 lbs pressure where as a injection sys is about 50 lbs. take another look and get back to me. dave
