Starting issue.

[sunbeam63]

Hello all. I'm a 21 year old young man, and I've recently bought a 1982 Fiat Spider 2000 from an older gentleman. He's the second owner, but took just as good care of it as the previous owner did; it's beautiful (at least to me). He said it ran when he put it away last summer, but when I went to pick it up, we had trouble getting it started. Regardless, I liked the car and have worked with old vehicles, so I knew it'd take some work to get it started, so I loaded it on the the trailer and took it home.

After turning the engine over to no prevail, I let it sit. A few days later, my brother came out and sat in it and started it up. Naturally, I was giddy as a school girl. I'd been driving it for two weeks. It had no problems and ran great.

Problem:

Last Monday, I drove it to the gas station to fill it up and turned it off. I filled the tank up and turned it over. No fire. I let it sit for a bit. After 20 minutes, it started up fine. I drove it to school, then to a practice; everything is fine. I got done with practice and it wouldn't fire. I had to trailer it home.

Diagnosis:

Today, I worked on it with my 80 year old mechanic friend. We checked for spark; it's getting that. Checked the distributor, all components seem in working order. So we opened up the air intake to spray starting fluid in it, which after doing so, the car wanted to fire. Then, we checked for fuel. However, while checking for fuel, we unknowingly took off the return hose. It started for a little bit. We figured since a steady stream was coming out of the return, the pump is working. After messing with all this, the car will now start up with no issue. I shut it off 3 or 4 times and it starts just fine, everything is normal. We're baffled at what it could be.

Question:

Obviously there is something wrong. With my luck, it's not just miraculously fixed. Could it be the ignition module (or whichever module is hooked up with the coil)? Or maybe it is fuel related or fuel injected related? I'd appreciate any and all thoughts. Thank you!

[RRoller123]

Could be the gas tank is not getting makeup air. The 82 is a sealed system and the makeup air goes back in through the charcoal canister:

[sunbeam63]

I appreciate the response. I'll drive it this week and see if there is any more issues, as well as keep that in mind. I drove it down the block yesterday and seems to be fine. I'll update should it have issues getting fuel!