Morris Minor Owners Club

Put stainless 3 branch on and metro inlet manifold....Inlet wont seal, leaks petrol. Tried half washers etc, are there supposed to be ferrules in the inlet manifold...shows them on the somerfords website..what do they do? Could this be the reason for leaking? Also when fitting the new manifold gasket, noticed it was thinner than the original that came off....the new measured 1.2mm and the old one was near 2mm thick...would this also make a difference?

Cheers Tim

The flanges all need to be the same thickness - you may need to file down the ones that are over thick. I don't use 'half washers' - but I have used washers that have been filed down on one half - to compensate for the uneven flanges. Thicker gasket would help - although thin one should really be ok.

Yes, also filed down flanges....Thing i noticed is that on the old gasket the outline of the maniold flanges were deep impressions...the thinner gasket didnt seem to have much of a depression, and none at the bottom

How strange! All nuts done up tight I suppose ? Any fouling between manifolds - to stop the inlet seating in correctly ?

maybe the train is getting in the way

Yep, all done up tight....cant do any more now till i get another manifold gasket....

You say it 'leaks petrol' - are you sure that is from the join manifold to haed - and just some petrol running down from the carb - and dripping off at the lowest point ? Normal problem would be hopeless inrush of air - not allowing the engine to run - or to run so fast it's uncontrollable!

Deff coming from manifold joint.....when i 1st ttied to start it, had big backfire and wouldn't start so knew there was an airleak....Im sure last time i tried it was only coming from the left port, but as i said the gasket is sopping wet now and not much good...so will need another gasket before i try again....but did wonder if it needed the ferrules in the manifold or not?

By 'ferrules' - do you mean the location rings? Half fitted in the manifold and half in the head ? Only the 295 head has provision for these - I have never used them. Still don't see why there is this leak of petrol - where's it coming from ? The carb shouldn't be leaking fuel like that - unless the fuel delivery pipe is connected to the wrong inlet on the carb .........<br><br>

#4 is the fuel inlet - #5 is the vent/breather - and #6 is the connection for the crankcase breather pipe.

There are recesses for the ferrules (locating rings) in the manifold and in the head...1275 Ital engine. Im sure the fuel is coming from the manifold joint and not from the carb...will check tomorrow if i can get a gasket from somewhere

Right -couldn't remember if some 940 heads have the location rings. But - the fuel has to be leaking from somewhere - to collect and run out of the manifold joint! Can't just be the normal flow of fuel into the engine -surely?

none at the bottom

Sounds like the exhaust pipe or something else is stopping the manifold sitting flush to the head.

The location rings won't help it seal, they're just there to (slightly) improve the air flow.

I had a problem with one particular head and alloy manifold where part of the head casting protruded such the the manifold wouldn't sit flush and left a slight gap along the top. Filing it off fixed the problem.

the thinner gasket didnt seem to have much of a depression, and none at the bottom

Sounds like something's stopping it underneath then, more difficult to see. I'd suggest assembling it without a gasket and without the exhaust first to see if it sits flush, then with the exhaust too.


Erm, like MarkyB just said then (sorry, didn't see your post).