Hi there,

I am hoping that someone can answer my question as I am stumped!

Just bought a 2CV charleston as a project, it runs, just, so before starting to service it, ie change the plugs and check timing I noticed when I pump the accelerator pedal before trying to start it, petrol leaks out from under the inlet manifold, weird I thought as the previous owner replaced the manifold.

So, I stripped it off and noticed there is a small hole drilled in the inlet manifold directly below the carb. I checked the old manifold that came with the car, and this has the same hole, is there supposed to be a hole there????? Seems weird that it is OK for fuel to drip out onto the engine???? .....What is the hole for?

Many thanks in advance.

Chris

its not a "flooding" fuel drain, thats my suspions, but ive never seen a carb on a 2cv, but on outboards you get them, its normally caused by a sticking float, a quick solution if you dont want to remove the carb, is to give a gentle but firm tap on the top of the carb somwhere solid to knock the floar...

maybe totally wrong but my share...

The hole is meant to be there, when a car doesn't start it's quite normal to find there's a fair dribble of fuel down there.Seems odd I know, but it's normal.

i was obviously miles off with my left wing suggestion

goes some way to stop flooding

my point was is i havent seen the hole on the manifold personally so thats why i went for the old left wingness

i had mine welded up, made me feel better about it, an caused no problem.
But yeah it is as Citroen intended it.

Harley

Jeepers, that's so weird! When my Charlie had the TINNIEST air leak at the carb/manifold join, it ran really badly - wouldn't idle at all; wouldn't even run below 1.5k revs. And now I read that there's a tiny hole always there. What the 'ell?! Or, is it tuned so's the mixture is correct with that hole taken into account? (Think I've answered my own Q there... )

Shamilee, I'm guessing you know there's an 'accelerating pump' on these carbs which squirts neat fuel into the carb for an extra boost when you floor her ('boost' being a relative term, of course...). So, that part of what you are noticing is perfectly ok - you will have neat petrol being fed in every time you press the accelerator pedal to t'floor. (I'm guessing you know that too...)

(Ok, ok - the winner of the most pointless post is... )

Have you ever driven one with a non functioning accelerator pump? Incredible fuel economy, glacier-like acceleration.

It is very simple, normal when you drive say 40 miles an hour, then there is an amount of petrol going into the engine, this petrol is sucked into the engine
by the presurre of the engine. The amount of petrol sucked into the engine depends on the nozzle wich is fitted in the carburator.

Now it comes, when you push the throttle down, the engine gets more air but the at the first moment the nozzle can't come up with it, therefor is the 'accelerating pump' to overcome the first moment when you put down the throttle.

Now when you are cranking the engine and play with the throttle the 'accelerating pump' is delevering fuel but the engine doesn´t need that much, therefor is this hole to let the abundant of petrol away from the engine otherwise it would drown.

So it is a normal thing when you crank the engine and play with the throttle that petrol leaks out of the inlet manifold.