The Lada Legend: Tumultuous First Day

What was supposed to be a glorious day filled with Lada driving turned out to be one of those days that makes you realize that buying a 1980 Lada is as much a crapshoot as it is a wise investment.

It all started when we first showed up to get the keys and take the Lada away. First the door wouldn’t open, so I had to unlock the passenger door (the car was parked 6 inches from a cement wall), wedge myself between the wall and the car to roll down the window, and then climb through said window into the passenger seat. Good thing we got photo evidence of that.

Thankfully the car started without any problems and we were away. Needless to say, cruising in a Lada is everything it is made out to be: awesome. We stopped, took some customary pictures, parked the car outside my apartment building, and went upstairs.

Then the fateful decision to give Evan a ride home was made. We made it to the agreed drop off point with problems, but it was on the way back, going up a hill, that the news no driver or passenger ever wants to hear: the gas tank is empty. Immediately the car shut down and I had to let it roll back in neutral to get it to the side of the road. A quick call to Evan with the bad news sent him on his way back up the hill.

We needed gas, but the closest station was a kilometre and a half away and we had no container. So we marched back to my place to get none other than a 5L water jug to put the gas in. Safety is always first in Azerbaijan.

At the gas station, the standard seven or eight attendants that wait around for cars to pull up (no one pumps their own gas here) were laughing hysterically. Apparently there is something funny about two foreigners saying that they need gas for the Lada they just purchased.

With the sweet smell of petrol in tow, we headed back down to the car, pried open the gas tank door (or whatever it’s called), and put as much gas as we could in. Then the moment of truth. Would the car start? I turned the key, heard the whir of the engine trying to start, but it would not start. Damn. We tried a couple of more times and decided that because we were on a hill, the gas wasn’t able to get to the carburetor. What we needed was other flat ground or a downhill slope.

Even after trying both of those options, still nothing. We even tried a rolling start, but to no avail. Finally, at about 2 AM, we realized it was about time to find a parking spot for the car. Right after we started pushing, a guy came up who immediately started trying to help us. His friend soon joined along with another, older taxi driver. For the next 30 minutes, we pushed the car up and down the street trying to get the car started. All for nothing.

Logic told us that the problem was simply that fuel was not being pumped from the gas tank to the carburetor. And as we would find out the next day, 1980 Ladas have a mechanical fuel pump, not an electrical one. That means you have to pump the little level on the fuel pump to get the gas flowing. Not only that, but when you do run out of gas, you are supposed to blow on the fuel hose so as to re-create the vacuum between the tank and the pump.

The downside to all those attempted starts was that the battery was drained of the power necessary to start the engine (it was also unusually cold in Baku). It took boosts on two separate occasions to get the car back to my apartment.

In the end, we got the car to the mechanic and I learned a lot about the fuel system.