14th January 2015 – Puerto Varas to Hornopiren on Ruta 7

We had a later start today as we only had a short drive of 57km to catch the ferry from Caleta Lo Arena to Puelche.  The cars sandwiched on the ferry, Michael & I had to climb out the passenger window!:-We then had a 50km drive to our overnight stop at Hornopiren with 30 of these kilometers being dirt as it’s currently being resealed. We did however have a bit of a problem with the car. Every time we went downhill on a bumpy dirt road the engine would cut out. It would start again straight away but it was a bit disconcerting.   We got to the hotel by lunch time which gave us a chance to work out what was happening. I was convinced that the engine was flooding so had a look at the float chambers of the carburettor but nothing appeared to be wrong. So we then went through a process of elimination which included changing the fuel filters, the distributor, the coil, the fuel pump, disconnecting numerous electrical parts. After each change I took the car to a suitable piece of road to try to recreate the problem as it would only happen on a bumpy road. On the last run we were able to stop the car as the problem was happening and we removed the main chamber and piston assembly from the front carburettor to discover that fuel was flooding past the needle in the float chamber. We then replaced the brand new needles and seats and discovered that the needles were still not stopping the fuel from coming out of the front float chamber into the carburettor. The floats in the car are the plastic type of float and are not adjustable. The general premise is that the very bumpy roads are bouncing the needle away from the seat and allowing too much fuel into the carburettor but this is only a problem when the throttle is not being used as is the case when going downhill and braking. We have tried a few things and will see tomorrow if we have fixed the problem. So after about 5 hours of working on the car with the help from all the other men, we had a hot meal and fell into bed.