Somewhat tardily I put in a fuel filter on both DAFs today. I say somewhat tardily because after quite a lot of investigation I found this in the carb on Jejy:
Which I dug out with a screwdriver, tissue paper, and cotton buds – giving me this:
Yes it does look like fine-brown sugar. Yes that did go into my engine. Yes I have sod-all compression on one cylinder.
I realised I was possibly screwed when I looked at the butterfly in the carb and saw a layer of crudy-rusty-dirt the same as was in the float chamber. I did everything correctly all the same; popped in an inline fuel filter before I started her, somewhat hopefully. The erratic idle’s gone, but the engine still runs like pants on a stick. I’ve no idea what ‘healthy’ values are for the compression on a DAF 44 – on the minor I think it’s around 140lb/in2. Jejy returned 110psi and 70 psi. I know 70 is too low.
There was also a cheerful line of sooty oil sprayed out the exhaust when I moved her.
Tomorrow I shall ring places and obtain quotes. I may as well get them to do the clutch shoes as well, frankly, since the engine has to come out. All please pray.
I’ve also asked JLH for a quote for the minor. That needs prayer too.
Anyway, now it’s time for me to convince Cardiff to let me be a postgrad despite my attrocious grades on my BScs :(.
