Morris Minor Owners Club

Be sure to retighten the head nuts - and then reset the valve gaps after the first heat cycle.

Will do - although it might be after the 3rd or 4th heat cycle ;-)

What a brilliant little engine the A series is. I've never had one before. Trundles along without fuss .. very obedient!
This weekend I'll have a go at sorting any tuning issues out. I found that the inlet manifold securing nuts were pretty loose so I'm guessing my "missing @ 45mph" iussue may have been exasperated by that.

Cheers all

Doug

just been going over some of the old posts, and noticed this one about the condenser blowing. when you replace a condenser or points always replace them both as a set, because they wear in together. if you replace just one you will inevitably find the other will die shortly thereafter.
Also if the points/plugs/condenser are still o.k. and only being replaced for a service, put them in a plastic bag and keep them in the toolbox. as someone else said, that way you will have a spare set you know works.
for cleaning all the old oil out of a radiator I throw a few spoonfulls of caustic soda in the radiator and give it a run to get warm. then drain and flush several times with fresh clean water. DO NOT GET HOT CAUSTIC WATER ON YOUR SKIN it will peel your skin straight off.
make sure you use a radiator treatment when you refill. if you don't clean the oil out, it clings to the inner walls of the radiator tubes and causes overheating,
this treatment will also find any weaknesses in the cooling system so if the radiator is a bit shabby probably best not to try it.
Personally I like to know the radiator is strong.

replace them both as a set, because they wear in together.

Not sure what, if anything, Roy said, but this sounds like an old wives (mechanics?) tale to me. Condensers don't wear as such because there are no moving parts.

As the quality of condensers isn't what it used to be I'd stick to if it ain't broke don't fix it.

I bet there are still original Lucas one still doing sterling service.

I merely rolled my eyes in dis-belief! However - it is true if the points have burned out very quickly then it may be wise to wonder if the capacitor has lost most of it's capacitance!

bmcecosse wrote:It could be 'rich' when idling if the float level is too high or the float valve is leaking allowing too much fuel in. When running the fuel will be used up - BUT because the jet has perhaps been set 'weak' at idle to try to compensate for the fuel overflow - it's now too weak when running! So - switch on the ignition, but don't start up - does the fuel pump tick away steadily ??

Now that the head gasket is changed, I can get a level playing field for tuning Monty. So .....

The fuel pump doesn't keep ticking with just ignition on- seems to be behaving quite well.

I'm still running about with the Pancake air filter half blocked with tape. It works, but t'other day I tried taking it off.
He's misfiring at about 50, but if I pull the choke out a little bit then there's loads more power- more than running with the tape on the filter. I guess that's the free flow air filter doing its thing, once it's free of tape!

He has a larger than standard carburettor so usual moggy rules / measurements don't apply.
So symptoms are :
Seems to start/tickover ok (little bit rough actually now I think about it)
accelerates ok
runs fine up to about 45-50 mph
at that speed, if you hold the accellerator steady, he starts misfiring and loses a bit of power
If you then accellerate a bit more, he springs into life with plenty of power
If you pull the choke out a bit, the misfire goes away and theres a good amount of power.

There is oil in the dashpot
the piston in the carb does apear to be going up and down when I lip the accelleraor.

I was thinking of getting a "colourtune" device but I think checking the colour of the ignition flame while doing 50mph might be a bit tricky. The sort of thing David Blane might like to try, perhaps.

Any ideas on where to start? I'm not that great with carbs as they never really go wrong, plus that might not be the problem.

He has a larger than standard carburettor

Pancake air filter

These are your problems.

Replace them with standard kit, probably for less than the cost of a colourtune.

To get a non-standard set up tuned, you need a rolling road and some years experience tuning SU carb needles.

An over size carb and pancake filter my look cool, but won't do anything useful without other modifications.
The cheap pancake filters work a lot worse that the standard filter arrangement.
Get the lid of that chromed for extra bling if you like.

poor starting when warm can lead to exhaust clouds without a water leak - the unburnt fuel will burn up when it eventually starts creating a lot of cack - in this weather the it's harder to see what is what as any steam condenses when mixed with cold air, making it's own little clowd, so with the addition of cack you may see a visible cloud.

On the flip side - if the headgasket is leaking between oil and water jacket it does not mean that it is leaking into the cylinders! In rarer cases it can leak at a particular temperature and not other temps. If this happens when the cooling system is cooling down it can 'suck' oil into the water jacket.
My modern car recently filled its water jacket with oil - cleaning it properly was next to impossible The oil level didn't drop - it rose! The addition of many % water into the oil didn't show itself, unlike the more obvious oil in the water (inch thick layer resembling mushroom stroganoff in the header tank). The car already had a long term water leak, so after a year of topping up it was a nasty shock to see the oil sludge building up in the water.

MarkyB wrote:

He has a larger than standard carburettor

Pancake air filter

These are your problems.

Replace them with standard kit, probably for less than the cost of a colourtune.

To get a non-standard set up tuned, you need a rolling road and some years experience tuning SU carb needles.

An over size carb and pancake filter my look cool, but won't do anything useful without other modifications.
The cheap pancake filters work a lot worse that the standard filter arrangement.
Get the lid of that chromed for extra bling if you like.

MarkyB - I agree, it means throwing the usual rules of moggy tuning out the window. Actually you;ve confirmed tha i'ts not a straightforwards thing, which is what I suspected.
I don't need the 'bling' at all (not that there is any!)- this is how the car was when I bought it.
I think I'll persevere for the mnoment though because the previous owner (who seems like a decent fella) said it ran fine before, and it was ok on the test drive.

If I can't sort it out I'll put a standard setup on in the end.

RayOfLeamington - thanks for that! Actually I should have posted thisto another thread maybe. I changed the head gasket a while ago and now all the weird starting issues have gone. He fires up almost straight away now.

I have tried flushing th radiator through and that worked up to a point. Haven't tried the caustic soda thing yet though.

The bestest way to clean oil from a cooling system is to use plain water and low-sudsing liquid dish-wash detergent. Depending on how much oil is in the system, you may have to use more than one cleaning cycle and then flush as many times as needed with clear water to get all the solution out of the system.
HTH, Ken

So - what is the larger carb - and what needle is in it ? have you optimised the idling mixture - you say it's a bit 'rough' ??

bmcecosse wrote:So - what is the larger carb - and what needle is in it ? have you optimised the idling mixture - you say it's a bit 'rough' ??

Thanks for asking-

I'll have to check the number, but I think it's a HIF (looks like a larger version of std SU) and the number 38 rings a bell- does that seem a likely number? Red spring .. I'm remembering from what the previous owner had written down (this is Dan's ex, 'Monty').

He starts really well- amazingly, actually. I suspect the battery is at the end of its days, because when starting in this v cold weather, it turns, then nearly stops, then turns... but he still finds enough clout to fire and as soon as it does, ping! it's alive.

However the tickover is erratic, wandering and changing tone a bit every few seconds. Maybe an air leak ? or a duff plug or perhaps a worn dissy shaft (only just thought of that).. or maybe a bit of my gaffa tape on the air filter is flapping about but I don't think so because as we know, Gaffa tape can be relied upon for a full and permanenet fix. ahem.

Anyway in this really cold weather, bless him, he's serviced several gigs filled to the brim with band gear, one of which was a super-tedious 3 hour drive to The Globe theatre in London. I absolutely cannot fault his reliability!
He's only failed to start once, and that was cos the battery was weak, and he was in a block of ice. Even then I started him with the starter handle (try that on a Mondeo, haha)

d

Its a HIF38 - I don't know what needle or sping is in it

cheers Matt - I remember "Red Spring" being written down. I'll have a look at the relevant parchment later.

People talk of Moggies being dead slow and you have to have patience etc .. I have to say Monty doens't follow that at all- he's not a fast car, obviously, but perfectly usable in everyday modern traffic.

Sounds like the ignition may be a tiny bit too advanced - if it's kicking on the starter. Retard slightly will help the starting....

Sorry, only just re-discovered this. AAH Needle & Red Spring in the carb as reccomended by WinSU (assuming you've not now changed it)

Thanks Dan - no changes so it's still as you set it up, but with my gaffa tape 'modification'. Seems to work well so until the weather improves and tinkering with a car doesn't involve freezing your knuckles to oblivion, I'll sit tight.