2 litre hesitation on acceleration.

Gday all,
    what could be causes for a reasonably standard ( has mild cam and extractors ) 2 litre escort to give a slight hesitation when you first accelerate. I really notice it when I coast around a small roundabout then accelerate out of it. Dosent matter how subtle or abruptly I prees the pedal it still does the hesitation then takes off and goes quite well. The carb dosent have a choke fitted ( does have the choke plates which aren't stuck )
                       Cheers
                            Shep

I had the same thing years back, tuned out to be a bad batch of fuel. Either junk in the fuel or possibly even water?
Drained the tank, cleaned the carbs and was good to go.

If its water in the fuel just pour a bottle of methylated spirits into the tank that will clean it up no problem

If its a standard webber it will be the throttle (accel) pump on the side. The wear a little bit, so the throttle opens and no fuel is pumped in the carb for a fraction of a second causing the slight hesitation. The kits were cheap back in the day so you used to just rekit the whole thing. Or you may be able to still buy the accel pump seperate. 

I'm with Ford_Escort on this one. Sounds like an accelerator pump problem.
 
Easy to check. Assuming it's the standard Weber 32/36 carbie, remove the air filter so as to be able to look down the barrels of the carbie, and while looking down the barrels turn the accelerator linkage to open the throttle. You should see a squirt of fuel being pumped into the primary barrel out of the accelerator discharge nozzle which is located at the top of the barrels, protruding towards the center of the barrels from in between the barrels. Although there are 2 accelerator discharge nozzles, 1 per barrel, only the primary barrel should receive a squirt of fuel which if memory serves me right will be the barrel closest to the rocker cover. If no fuel is squirted into the primary barrel, then you have a problem with the accelerator pump circuit. This could be caused by a damaged accelerator diaphragm, a blockage in the accelerator pump circuit, or damaged accelerator discharge nozzle.
 
Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

some 32/36 carbs have sleeved main discharge nozzles, those sometimes loosen up and spin around causing lean running. will idle fine but run lean at all other throttle openings/engine loads. throw those out and replace with full cast ones.
 
Lean smells very strong also, so don't assume its rich unless you are familiar with both smells. 
 
cheers 

So, Ive managed to score a free standard weber-manifold etc off a TF Cortina that has only done 75,000kms ! It was a  1 owner before a mate bought it and pulled the 2 litre out to put in a 302, 9 inch etc etc so Im going to fit that carby but I will still pull down the problem weber and have a look at it. I want the Choke installed again anyway so I can start it up when its cold.
      Interesting you mention vacuum leaks. I was thinking of this because, the brakes, ( which were rebuilt and serviced by the previous owner who did a 1st class resto on the car ) ,  don't have much power and at first I suspected crappy pads and discks ( as these weren't replaced in the resto ) but I started thinking maybe the vacuum booster isn't getting the needed vacuum , or its leaking vacuum.

Hey Jim,
        Yeah, I just want the choke for slightly easier cold starts! I was planning on getting it rebuilt by a carb specialist but then when you add the cost of the choke parts ( I would use all new bits ) its getting up to the price of a new carb. Then I got the chance to grab this Cortina carb so its a logical step to clean that one and put it on first . May or may not solve the slight hesitation but it will cost me nothing to try.
       Hows the RS going ? Rally packs going great!
                      Shep