Morris Minor Owners Club

I usually get high teens or very low 20's.

Pete

any ideas??

maybe a strong NE breeze?

Its all in your needle.

You may find you're running rich at midrange where you're doing a granny-safe 50mph but then leaning out higher up the range at boy racer speeds.

Mine used to do much the same, only it was so bad you'd find the engine starving at certain revs then bogging down at others.

so how do i fix it?? new needle?

Almost certainly down to head wind one way - and tail wind coming back! Makes a huge difference. I'm v surprised a '944' engine Minor can do 80 !! The tail wind would need to be ferocious.

Well mine is similar to plastic

But with one of my vans which is LPG I get 525miles out of one tank and it's only 48p a litre!

James

AndrewSkinner wrote:Recently I did a straight run down to Birmingham from cheltenham...

On the way back I decided to open the baby up and was averaging around 80mph+, the wierd thing was that the fuel guage hardly moved on the way back?? any ideas??

B'ham to Cheltenham is downhill. 'Sobvious...

bigginger wrote:B'ham to Cheltenham is downhill. 'Sobvious...

Unless he overshot and went up Birdlip

STEVE 4063, are those Rover diesel figures for a manual or auto CDTI?

I commute 40 miles daily, 20 each way toodling along at 1,800 rpm which is 50 mph cos of speed limits and get about 45 mpg. Car is a superbly comfy and tidy 98 Renault Laguna 2.2td estate with 183k on the clock - but needing a clutch in the next few months

so how do i fix it?? new needle?

Yes.

Although if its running well all the rest of the time it might be fine and the headwind explanation could be correct.

To find out which needle best suits your spec buya copy of WinSU. Its a tenner. A new needle will cost about a tenner too.

If you'res is totaly standard and you have the factory needle ignore this, its probably fine.

I cannot get the carb to run correctly. The plugs always come out black and at the moment the bolt that changes the position of the needle is fully up (Weakest mixture possible) and yet it still clogs up the plugs and runs a bit smokey. Surely with the carb set to one extreme it shouldnt run? is this a worn needle? is there a way of checking. I cant see any wear on the needle?

Thats very odd.
I went to look at a car identical to yours with the same symptoms.. of course that was in dorset.

I dont see how they can overfuel with the mixture set at its leanest.
I hope someone else has an idea about this.
Just out of interest is the car modified at all?
Is the air filter blocked? (silly question but you've got to ask)

no, perfectly reasonable question!

The aire filter is only a few weeks old and the car isnt modified.

The only thing on the engine that I dont think is original is the tappets - I am not 100% sure but this is what someone said about the photos in my other thread called 'shiny moggy engine' under 'general discusion'

Keep me updated with any new findings

Some other possibilities for it running rich are a sticking choke mechanism, the carb could have the wrong needle for the engine, the needle might be worn, or the piston return spring could be missing (unlikely).