Morris Minor Owners Club

apear to have no spark, checked coil, for what it was worth, got voltage, at wire connecting to dizz.

any way of knowing oreintation of dizz and, how can you tell which poistion the rotar arm is relation to piston stroke i.e. to find which contact is for which cylinder/spark plug. find one and the rest should be easy i.e. working anti clock wise through the firing order!

may also need carb setup advise?

Thanks, Tim

Same question so same answer... Is there a spark at the king lead - going TO the dizzy? If so - then check carbon brush/tiny spring/rotor arm and dizzy cap in general. Then check for a spark at what you think should be #1 lead (ie it reaches the plug...) and then follow round anti-clock 1342 and give it a try. If no joy - (and you are sure of petrol..) then you need to find TDC on #1 - and move the dizzy till it sparks pretty much at TDC. Worry about optimising it once it's warmed up.

Cheers! more work to add to tonights list. how do can I go about finding TDC. Is this through valve position?

Drop a drinking straw down #1 plug hole and watch it rise to the top as you turn the engine. That's TDC for #1 and #4.

Went back to this and still having issues. pretty sure fuel is not the problem though do have a seprate question aout the return spring near to the body of carb, as it keeps coming of

The engine appears to be kicking back against the starter and macking a dull pop sound think we did as susgested.
found a new compression in garage tiddy so may have a look at that aswell.

Kicking indicates it's sparking - just a bit too advanced. Turn the dizzy slightly anti-clockwise till it starts! What spring ?? Picture??

Well something appears to combust as we have an fairly regular but intermittent bang!

Have you stopped the 'kicking' ? Plug leads correct order... 1342 ant-clock round the dizzy cap... ?

stopped kicking, but like i say there is an intermitent bang, leads are in correct order but still not cetain if in correct place, im not sure on the condition of some of ht leads, thinking about swapping diz and leads with a known working one from another engine?

Sound idea. But you could just move the leads round (again anti-clock) one place at a time to see if that works..

started trying that but, one lead is too short to get all positions, also some dont seem to have a positive 'click'.

Sounds like you need new HT leads....

Leads swapped with running car, same problem. Swapped distributor bodies over, runs less well in running car (no big problem), but no change on on sparking one - well it wanted to fire but did not, though was lack of amps (063 battery previously tested at 73% cold starting capacity) .

Battery from running car swapped, now the problem car dead / no electrics.

We are checking earths all over (again) tomorrow.

I think it's time to set the valve gaps and run a compression check....

Tried all resitance and voltage through all igniton and starter circuit, swapped coils just for proof all ok, moved ht lead between all poitions. what are valve gaps in mm? and acceptable compression? im suprised if it could be this as engine ant really been apart took the head off but nothing got ajusted? could a new head gasket make so much diffrence?

Swapped coils with the running car this morning, no noticeable difference.

Compression Test came up at zero, thought gauge was faulty , so checked running car (in passing its running on one cylinder only !) and got reasonably 100-120 psi readings )

So, the head had been at the machine shop, being the one where I broke the heater studs in it, so it appears (and either they did , and told me and I forgot, or did not tell me at all, screwed down All the rocker adjustments - bar one ). Checking the valve to rocker gaps all were solidly nil gap, having misplaced the feeler gauges, adjusted to 'reasonably wobble' on cold setting. One valve on no 2 cylinder was had a little gap , must have been this one creating the odd puff of power). When all done , after remembering that HT lead to coil had not been re-connected , a quick tip of fuel into float chamber (tank is not connected), hold the choke and accelerator areas on the carb and apply power across the pull switch ( well more push from under-bonnet at present), fired up sweetly, and although needs a little timing and valve clearance adjustment we are on the way to getting the thing going now. Thanks to bmcecosse, as we would not have thought of valve clearances owing to the engine running when removed / vehicle off road however many years ago.

Its still flattening batteries and rapidly draining the float chamber of fuel, but we can now re-start on completing the brake installations

Well -at least it's going! But the 100/120 from the 'other' car is terrible....... It should be ~ 160, but 140 would still be usable.

bmcecosse wrote:Well -at least it's going! But the 100/120 from the 'other' car is terrible....... It should be ~ 160, but 140 would still be usable.

Valve gaps need resetting on that, (plus its the head were I could not fit oil seals - doing a temp head next week , then off with the unleaded one to find where the little things should best go (q.v. other threads on that head... somewhere on a message board around here)