Hi there. I am a new owner of a 1989 Mini Racing Green. It was running ok but suddenly went very lumpy as if suffocating.. would then recover and run ok for a while … and then start going really lumpy and impossible to drive safely.
I do not know too much about the engine as you about to find out:
Having a casual look under the bonnet I discovered a thin black plastic pipe (about 2mm diamater) coming from the “cone” (vacuum unit I think) near the distributor. This pipe is about 40cm long but does end up anywhere - it is just floating about.
So my question is, is this correct or should it go somewhere. Could it be the reason for the lumpy running ?
PLEASE HELP!! I am not technical so please speak slowly !!!
There’s a brass tube coming out of the Carburretor, pointing about 45degrees upwards. Thats assuming that you have a certain type of carb that I (and most Minis I think) have, something called an HS4. It should fit into that.
Without the vacuum advance, the car runs rough and will not pick up properly when you accelerate. Also, it can mess up the mixture so you need more choke etc.
There are 3 tubes:
the 1 nearest the windscreen is the fuel inlet, the one DIRECTLY next to it is the overflow, then there is another one. It is nearer the engine itself. This third one is the one you want.
Or at least, thats where I fitted mine. I have got a piece of silicon tubing which fits in the tube. Dont know how a 2mm pipe would fit, without a spacer…
I can see all 3 of those brass pipe things. The first has the fuel, the second there is nothing as it is an overflow, and the third already has a fat-ish rubber pipe going to it that looks at home.
The thing I’m on about starts life near the front of the car, comes out of the trumpet shaped thing, is black plastic (not rubber) and ss only 2mm thick.
We are talking about the same thing, but mine was stripped when I got it. This is how I was told mine went together, and it runs like that. Or did, but thats another story…
The trumpet shaped thing is the vacuum advance for the ignition.
Where does this big pipe run to on the third pipe out of the carb?
It goes to a cylinder shaped thing on the right hand side, but I can’t find any reference to it in the haynes book. The cyclinder shaped thing is about the size of a can of beer.
Sorry then, I dont know what that is. The vacuum pipe should run to a port up on the carb there, but I dunno what else to suggest! Thats where mine is.
