Morris Minor Owners Club

Only 2 of the cars are anywhere even close to being on the road - well, one, really. The engine for the other is an unused gold seal 1275 - but I'm not using that on Arthur The touble is, if an engine is running OK I tend to leave it in the car, and getting round to rebuilding engines when there isn't a car ready for them tends to take a back seat. I know lots of people find that the most enjoyable bit, but not me...

Sounds like the engine has been running too weak - the centre pair often run weaker than the outer two. You may be lucky with the piston swap - but make sure the rings on the 'new' piston going in are free and still have some spring in them. My 1275 Mini engine was rebuilt using pistons I took out a 1300 engine over 25 years ago ! It runs fine.

Cheers - so it's what I said I thought was the problem at the beginning of the post, and in the title. The piston's in now - and I did...

Cool. Chances of making the MoT & L2B?

Both good - I think. Assuming it starts up when the new head's on, which given that it's been running on 3 pistons for gawd knows how long, I'd say are good . LONG day under the car, and yes, lots of oil drips on the face. I'll post a pic of the piston in a minute - it's quite a sight...

bigginger wrote:Both good - I think. Assuming it starts up when the new head's on, which given that it's been running on 3 pistons for gawd knows how long, I'd say are good . LONG day under the car, and yes, lots of oil drips on the face. I'll post a pic of the piston in a minute - it's quite a sight...

Great, that's brilliant news. Well done that man!

Can't post the pic, 'cos the modem's playing silly (&*$%^&s - I'll shove one up on the blog for you - link coming

Oh no it isn't - the blogger picture server won't play either

Oh well, I guess I can wait 'till tomorrow. Thanks for trying anyway.

Right, still no modem, so they're on the blog. http://bigginger.blogspot.com/ - there are various swear words on there, people, so don't read them if you're easily unsettled.
The skirt of the piston has vanished too, and no bits of it in the engine so I assume that a leaking gasket was 'cured' by fitting a new one. Now that's bodging!

Looks like gremlins have been biting chunks out!

Good grief! How come the skirt is so small? It almost looks like a k-series piston! Those 'chip' marks are definately not healthy. I can't see from the pictures but is the 'chip' down to the top ring?

What's the latest update on the engine then?

Maybe it's a Mini skirt Cam?

The head is on and ready to be tried as soon as I've got a couple of jubilee clips for the heater hoses - the old ones gave up That and finishing the exhaust plus swapping the rear wheels/tyres for Bunny's and I'm ready to fail. Here's hoping it starts/runs. Found the old skirt bits in the sump, BTW - is that why you say it's small?

Oh, and do up the last clip on the bypass hose...

The piston skirt looks so uniform. Maybe it's the angle of the photo. I wonder why it broke up so badly? Maybe it was a dodgy piston.

Good luck with the MoT!

It's a dodgy piston now all right and thanks for the luck. I'm looking forward to a day off... Oh, and thanks for the kind words on your blog too

PS Just been looking at the pic - it does look even, doesn't it. It isn't, promise - I'll bring it to Brighton, even if I'm NOT driving him...

I'm far too impatient to let little things like jube clips get in the way of seeing if an engine runs

Actually, I'm too impatient to spend half an hour trying to find various gaskets and bolts to clamp down a loose stat housing when a car only needs moving 50 foot or so... An old Fanta bottle acts as part of my total loss cooling system, and my lack of fuel pump and small bottle of petrol acts as my safety system so I can't run the engine too long without checking various fluids

Good luck!

OK, OK - it was getting dark too, and it had been a VERY long day

Well, I started my old 1098 up without the water system connected just to see if she'd fire up OK, but I TOTALLY understand what Andrew is on about. Sometimes enough is enough and looking at something fresh in the morning is far better than knackered late at night.

And now let's all hope he passes the MOT