Morris Minor Owners Club

i think lily has surpassed her awkwardness, deciding that seizing up in lane 3 of the M25 was a good idea. I'm assuming this is what's happened anyway - she stalled in traffic and then wouldn't restart, and trying with the starting handle was solid too.
Prior to this we have had all the overheating and the other day it took half an hour for her to deign to start - do we think any of this is linked?

She's now back at the local minor garage, but i wondered if anyone had any ideas about what might have caused this?

Fail to restart could just be the starter motor 'stuck in'... had it been running well enough/not overheating before this happened?

about an hour previously she was running hot - when i checked the rad the water blew up when the cap was removed - so i called into Chertsey minors. They felt the engine was hot, and to me the thermostat was stiff, but i have nothing to compare this to.

When the AA finally looked at it, they tried rocking it in gear, and turning it on the starting handle but nothing at all. As i said before when we first stalled, turning the key the first 3 times got the usual sounds of a car trying to start but the 4th and subsequent times it's literally just clunked. The starter motor i think is still an option i think, but i'm not sure that explains the history of hot running.

If it was VERY overheated then it might have seized, but you really have to try hard to get it that hot. However, pressurised radiator might be a head gasket. If it was previously overheating then there must be an underlying problem. Easy to be wise with hindsight, but any problem should be sorted before it leads to something worse. At this stage, if the engine will not turn on the handle (with the plugs out and car in neutral!) then you are probably going to need to take the engine out and strip it to see what is wrong.

I don't understand how you can judge that the thermostat is stiff - it's not something that you move, rarely goes wrong, and the only way to test is to remove and place in hot water with a thermometer.

A friend of mine had his Minor overheat (total water loss) and sieze on the motorway.
The A A took his car to a local garage who removed sump and cylinder head and hammering with blocks of wood and lots of penetrating oil got the pistons moving again.

Apparently they bolted the head back on (new gasket), re-fitted the sump, filled with oil and water, replaced the faulty hose and the car started and ran fine! Was ok for the next two years he owned the car as well.

What I'm saying is this can be fixable, if you are lucky.

Seriously think this is a very 'minor' problem - stuck starter or flat battery - something like that. The overheating -well back to basics -a good flush out of block and rad - and fit a 74 degree stat. How it can be 'stiff' is also beyond me.......

Morris Minors are not modern cars whch can be ignored under the bonnet. Fluid levels should be checked before every motorway journey. If the car is overheating you should be able to smell it long before it beomes a problem

Mike et al - she is checked every journey out and if you read back, the overheating has been discussed previously, which led to the rad being flushed a day prior to this journey and the detour to chertsey ten miles before this happened to check the thermostat and have a conversation about recoring the radiator, so it's not like i've been just ignoring any issues. And trust me i know the smell of an engine overheating - i have been stuck in a lot of jams!

I think there must be some underlying issue as the overheating has been happening a while, and like i say - with the help of this board we'd been working through possible solutions, and we have had a new head gasket in the last 6 months too, plus there was the issue this week of taking 40 minutes to start. The rather excellent highway patrol man told me about taking the plugs out and turning it on the crank, but it was still solid.

i will get the garage to hit it as often as possible - but i think the obvious thing is to look at the starter motor first (i'm assuming its not the battery as i checked the lights and wipers and they still worked) and then cross my fingers it's not totally seized.

Fingers and toes crossed for you..........

chertsey managed to get her started this morning and she ran for a few minutes and then locked up again....

i'm hoping that this means it's not a total seizure and "just" something jamming or a connection dropping out, but i guess now i'm just waiting!

sorry if i sounded frustrated last night.

Hello Mark,

has the coolant level dropped as it could be a cylinder head leak and there is water in the cylinder(s). Did you try turning it backwards, if you can get some movement that way I would suggest it has not seized?

Alec

Thanks for the resume.
A couple of thoughts
Ref removing rad cap, what pressure cap is fitted? Should be 4 lb.
Were there any noises when the engine stalled?
If you remove the starter motor and spark plugs, and the engine will not turn over on the handle with no compression then the fault is within the engine not with any components.
If water is getting into the combustion chamber and causing the engine to sieze then removing the plugs should allow the engine to be turned.
Have you tried a compression test when the engine is able to turn?

4lb rad cap - although even the new one is a little loose, like the thread on the radiator isn't quite right, which is why we replaced the old one.

The engine just stalled as "normal" - at that point i would have been looking to get to the hard shoulder sharpish anyway as in the past that has meant overheating is imminent. I have to say the engine was properly hot, you could feel the heat coming off it and we'd done about 12 miles at that point - coil was hot to touch, radiator top was, thermostat housing was. The last set of compression tests were equal across the lot, and that was after the first set of overheating, but obviously before she locked up. i don't have the readings with me but i know they were the same.

The engine has restarted now off a jump start, so there is some movement, but jammed up again after a while of running. I'm trusting Chertsey will be looking at all your suggestions - i don't have a day off for 2 weeks, so i'm using you all as sounding boards and hoping what you and the Chertsey boys say to me match!

So -why did it need a 'jump start'? Do these 'chertsey' people have any idea what they are doing???

they probably do (they are a morris minor centre after all, and i'm not their only customer!!) - i probably don't - i sometimes use the wrong terminology, so it may not have been jump started, but they did get it started, which is more than i or the AA man could mange on the starting handle with or without sparkplugs.

i will listen to the exact words in future......

Just an off the wall thought: Does depressing the clutch make any difference? Forget about neutral, I'm just wondering whether disconnecting the engine from the drive train will allow it to turn over?

Presumably then the starter motor is OK unless they tow started it.
Whether it was started from the car battery or an external source does not matter as far as the problem is concerned, the fact that it stalls after a few minutes is.
However it was started it would need the spark plugs.
Is the engine actually siezed immediately after stalling?
I could name one or two Minor establishments who don't know what they are doing. Never had any dealings with the Chertsey establishment so they are not included

I just wondered if the battery was totally flat - and when the jump leads were removed what little charge had been transferred was used up - and then the fuel pump would stop. But it's all very difficult to diagnose 'at a distance'......

I think from what i can gather (a phone call between meetings) the engine did seize the first time after stalling. Since then however they have done more work and she is alive again and we're just awaiting the radiator flushing and checking to see how much that contributes to the overheating problem, but i am told prior to removing the radiator she has been out and about and didn't cut out at all. I'm still not sure it could have been the battery as it had started on the button a hour earlier and after seizing solid i still had enough power 3 hours later to turn the lights on (this is where i get told that the battery doesn't power the lights and wipers isn't it?)

I will in future heed Mike's words about getting the work done at the first sniff of an issue and not just resolving the immediate thing without thinking about a greater underlying problem - i think that assuming the overheating was just a small issue has led us to where we are.

When i have had a proper chat i can tell you everything they replaced or fiddled with - hopefully for BMecosse's sanity they've left the coil alone!! But as ever - thank you for your thoughts.

If it starts and runs - it really can't have been 'seized' - just stalled. A seized engine pretty much involves a strip down for honing/rings/shells as a minimum........