Ziester

A lot of people do that once they retire. They were an older couple, decided to spend a few years on the road traveling, but wanted a little bit of flexibility on exploring the area without being in the RV. To everyone else, thanks again for the advice! I just got new filters today and will be installing them tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Wow, thanks for all the help! This seems like a great place to start.

Hey all! This is my first post and I am a novice in the world of Bratting, but I need some help getting the old girl running and am hoping someone can help me diagnose the problem. I've had it for a while and up until a few months ago it ran really well. A little back story: It's a 1985 and I bought it from it's original owner. It has 80K miles, but of that only about 30K were actually driven (they pulled it behind an RV), and has had no major repair work done. I've kept her serviced regularly and she's mostly just driven to work and back. Anyway, a couple of months ago I noticed some chugging when I would accelerate. The car would start to speed up, then would chug and sputter a little bit, then continue on like nothing was wrong. It started shortly after having filled up my tank and didn't appear to be causing problems elsewhere, so I attributed the problems to bad gasoline. I spoke with a mechanic who instructed me to just take it easy on the car until the majority of the gas was used, then fill it up at a different station. I followed his advice and she ran fine for a few days, but then started acting up again. He then said that there might have been just enough bad gas left in the car when I filled up to keep causing problems, and suggested that I use a fuel detergent. He told me to put the detergent in, fill the tank back up, and then drive the car carefully. He said that I could expect to see it clear up in a half to three quarters of a tank. I followed his advice again and the car ran smoothly for a few days, but then the chugging and sputtering started again. This time, when I went to a different mechanic, he told me to track when and where the problems were happening, then get back with him. I drove for about a week and noticed that I was having disruptions always in the morning time, while the car was between the first and second notch on the temperature gauge. His diagnosis was that there was water in the tank that was condensing overnight, causing problems when I tried to drive it the next morning. He suggested a different kind of fuel detergent, which I used, and said that I should be okay. Guess what? It didn't stop and in fact, it got worse. Instead of just chugging a little and then continuing to run, the car would chug, sputter, and lose acceleration. The engine would stay running and I was able to rev the engine as it was slowing down, but the car wasn't engaging back into the acceleration. Then the car would die when I applied my breaks to coast into a parking lot. I would have to allow the car to idle for a while, rev the engine a few times, then start up and continue on. I stopped driving the car on a regular basis and it seemed to perform okay (not great, like it used to) with only minor sputtering when I let the car warm up to the half way point on my temperature gauge. Then, about two weeks later while I was driving, the car sputtered, died, then wouldn't farther than fifty feet or so when I started it up again. It was impossible to drive, so I called a third mechanic to come out and help me get it home. He drove it and once he parked, he said that a) he could smell a lot of fuel and that it only seemed to have problems when we accelerated. He thought it might have problems with the fuel line, but when he checked it it was fine. He then thought it might be the carburetor causing the engine to flood and die. He said that when the car heats up and the carburetor starts to open, the valves weren't opening properly, so it was getting too much fuel and not enough air. He took the carburetor off and cleaned it out with some spray stuff in a can, then put it back on and let it run as it heated up to see if it would open properly. It did, so he took it for a test drive and didn't have any problems. He said that he thought it was just dirty and the valves weren't opening properly, and that it should be fine. I'm not sure if you catch a theme here, but it wasn't fine. The car still sputtered, choked, died. On and on. So he took another look and said that the coil that opens the valve (and pardon me of those aren't the right words - I'm still learning) might be broken, so he bought a new part to put there. We went in to replace it (and I watched because I wanted to learn, so I'm repeating this from first hand), but when we took it off it looked fine. No dents or breaks or bends or anything. He moved it around and it moved. He was able to move the little metal valve by its prong that connects to the coil, and he also tested to see if the coil was getting power, which it was. Well, let me clarify. The metal head on the wire that connects to the coil fell off, so we replaced it and the coil got power. We though maybe that was the problem, so I test drove it again. And ... it was perfect! Ran just like the little Brat I bought. BUT (you knew there had to be a “but”), the next time I tried to do it, it went back to its old sputtering, choking ways. I'm seriously about to pull my hair out. I've been to three separate mechanics, but no one seems to know enough about Brats to help me. Can any of you seasoned Brat owners offer me some guidance? Thanks!!