Ransomes 18" Auto Certes

Andy at Cove cc Mon, 03/09/2012

I have acquired a Ransomes Auto Certes with Villiers Sloper engine.

Engine has a good spark but will only run for a short while by squirting petrol into the combustion chamber. For some reason it will not draw fuel from the carburetor.

I have so far:

replaced the fuel line,

Cleaned the tank, fuel tap and filter

Checked that both valves open and close

Cleaned the carburetor with an airline including the filter in the union at the end of the fuel line

The carburetor is the type with the air filter to the side, (I do have images but don't seem to be able to upload them)

I am stumped, is it possible that a lack of compression will not draw fuel? It does seem ok for compression though!!

Any suggestions?

Forums

Technical

Hi, I'm more than happy to

redfernmowers Mon, 03/09/2012

Hi, I'm more than happy to help you with this problem as I've restored a few villiers slopers in my time and have a Ransomes Auto Certes MK6 fully restored and running for sale.

if you'd like to drop me an email at edwardredfern@sky.com, I'd be more than happy to assist with full instructions including an engine rebuild setup, etc. let me know what you need and I'm happy to help where possible.

Reluctant Sloper!

wristpin Thu, 06/09/2012

By squirting fuel into the combustion chamber do you mean through the plug hole? If it fires that it only tells you that you have a spark, air and enough compression to fire the mixture.

Now try putting a little fuel on a rag and holding it over the air cleaner inlet while pulling it over (good idea to have a powder or CO2 fire extinguisher handy in case of back fire) .

If it then fires and runs a bit it if fairly safe to say that the valves are OK and that there is still a blockage in the carb somewhere. A strip and thorough clean is needed.If you have access to an ultrasonic cleaning tank it makes the job easier but the Amal carb on the Sloper is pretty basic and a thorough manual clean should be adequate

From thirty plus years of dealing with Slopers I can say with some conviction that assuming that it is not totally worn out the difference between one that just runs and one that runs and ticks over sweetly is usually valves. Refaced valves and seats cut to give an nice narrow contact patch centred on the valve face make all the difference. On any spark ignition engine no amount of fiddling with timing or carburettion is time well spent unless the valves are good. .

There is a very good book "Small Engine Secrets and Solutions" by John Carrow a former Briggs and Stratton service manager and trainer and one of my favourite quotes is :-

"Technicians who are valve critical will always achieve a better record of repair success than those who take a near enough approach"

Sadly that book is out of print but if you can get hold of a copy it contains a lot of useful gen regardless of what engine you are working on.The ISBN number is 0-9585317-0-6

ey up angus, got it all in

redfernmowers Fri, 07/09/2012

ey up angus, got it all in hand. giving him a hand with this one.

the carb's a non standard type and the jets are completely fouled. it's been left to stand too long so the carb is blocked up like my rig when it first arrived. so I'm walking him through a full service here. compression and spark are healthy, the fuel isn't feeding into the carb at all so it's going to be stripped down, decontaminated, tested and re-installed. there's a different filter unit on this one so am going through part numbers for a filter to replace it.

how you doing? still causing chaos?

hillsider Fri, 07/09/2012

Hi,

If it is of any help I have seen sloper engines with the filter housing mounted to one side on later type engines that also had electronic ignition fitted as standard.

Ray.

that's the model we're

redfernmowers Fri, 07/09/2012

that's the model we're talking about lol. just going through some paperwork and getting some specs to the carb. interesting design.