Morris Minor Owners Club

The blow-by indicates stuck rings/worn bores and/or pistons. I don't fancy the diesel oil in sump trick! But what can work - is a small amount of diesel oil (egg cup) poured into each spark plug hole - and left to soak down into the rings for a few days. This 'may' release stuck rings. Otherwise - off with head and sump - and take the pistons out, and clean them up properly!

I don't fancy the diesel down the bores trick
Actually it sounds like a plan and should work faster than my "trick"
Not sure what the objection to my idea is. I've used it on clagged up Minor engines with no ill effects.

The objection to adding diesel oil to the lubricating oil is - that it will thin the oil too much and may ruin the bearings !

Aha!
If you read my post again you will see I said diesel engineoil not diesel.
It contains a lot more detergent than petrol engine oil.
If you put diesel down the bores video the 1st engine start. There should be an impressive amount of smoke!

Ahhh sorry - missed that. Yes - I have used diesel engine oil - 100% - to try to clear up a sticky engine. It didn't work!

There is no blue smoke from exhaust at all which is pretty odd really. Only smoke as I say has being blow by from rocker and also breather from side of engine. Obviously a lot of moisture has being getting up to top end for some time as the original rocker gear was that bad that the engineer couldn't get it apart as it was that badly oxidised it had welded itself together and was pitted etc. Their was also quite a lot of bits of dryed dirt around original rocker gear before I cleaned it. I have since flushed engine out with STP engine flush which it seemed to like as it idled better. I am going to put some synthetic oil in tomorrow with new filter 10/40 and see how that goes. I would expect it to burn some oil but not worried if it helps clean it out as well as free up engine. Have two frost plugs to re-new and will then take it for a decent run up road and see how it goes then I will flush coolant system as well and put new Bars leaks and anitfreeze in it to protect system. I will also try a bit of diesel fuel in plug holes and see how that goes as well. You are quite right about the detergent factor of synthetic oils. I remember many years ago my first car when we got married was a A55 cambridge. Around that time mobil 1 synthetic came out so I thought I'd try it-well my old austin started drinking oil which seemed odd. I told my dad who was a mechanic and he laughed and told me synthetic oil nothing new and problem with it is it scavenges the system (cleaning it out) and with older cars it shows up the wear in the engine. He told me to take it out and put mineral oil in it and after a while it came right again. If this does free it up and bearing in mind it has improved enormously from when I bought it so if it's driveable and reliable it will go until such time I am ready to strip it down. We are building a new garage and once that's built it will be much easier to tear it down if necessary. Parts readily available so very lucky there-I work for parts company in new zealand so lucky there too. Once I have tryed all this it will be interesting to do a compression check and see where it 's at-

Don't waste money on expensive 'synthethic' oil - just use cheap 20W50 oil from Asda or Morrisons - and change it after a thousand miles.

A propos of nothing much, how good is the bonnet fit on your car??!

tonym911 wrote:A propos of nothing much, how good is the bonnet fit on your car??!

Hmm I am used to topics going slightly of track but oil into bonnet fit is a good one or have I missed the point (as I often do)

Sorry it was a bit random but the bonnet shut lines just jumped out at me.

I assumed it was to do with underbonnet ventilation - of the oil fumes!

Thankyou for your advice. Since putting STP engine flush through engine and doing as you suggested and running a synthetic oil the engine is running much better and has more compression than what it did previous. It also starts easier as I don't have to wind it over so much as i did before.
Surprisingly there is no smoke out the exhaust and minimal blow by at rocker and breather. It seems to get better the more I run it so perhaps all this has helped free up the rings. I have also put new air cleaner in it as old one was pretty badly blocked.
Looking forward to taking it on a club run with a few more jobs to do before then. Have joined local morris minor club and there is a national rally being held in new plymouth over easter.