Morris Minor Owners Club

... Is, I'm guessing, not a good thing.

Hello everyone.

I hope you don't mind a question from an utter 'noob' but I am very new at Morris Minor ownership.

My father's pride and joy since 1996 has been his 1970 4 door Minor. As his health is failing he passed on the ownership of 'Gladys' to me last week.

Yesterday, I brought her to her new home in West Wales from her old home in Ponty a journey of some 60 or 70 miles, mostly along the M4.

Although he has just had her serviced and MOTed about 2 weeks ago, he has been unable to drive her for longer than I think he cares to admit, and concequently she has been left to stand outside his flat for an unspecified amount of time.

Once an issue with a flat battery was resolved, and I had kind of mastered the gear changes (It wasn't pretty for the first few changes!) we got on the road for our white knuckle drive back to West Wales.

My partner, how followed me said that there was some blue smoke early on in the drive, but that it stopped after a while. I tried very hard not to push her too hard and trundled along at about 45-50 mph.

About half a dozen or so times she seemed to lose power, and either I would have to pull off the motorway and let her catch her breath, and a couple of times, just slowing down to a near stop on the hard shoulder seemed to do the trick. It seemed at times that she was missfiring some of the time and at other times she just kind of jerked along.

This morning when I got her out of the garage to have a look at her, I noticed 3 small spots of oil on the floor. When I went to check the oil, she was failrly low, but not on minimum.

When I topped the oil up I noticed that there was some mayonnaise like substance just below the oil cap. My first thought was head gasket. I cleaned it out and we decided to go for a gentle country drive rather than panic and waste a gorgous sunny Sunday.

We drove about 20 miles around our local country lanes and headed back home. The oil level hadn't gone down noticably but again, there was 'mayo' under the oil cap.

Can anyone tell me whether this is evidence of a serious engine problem or whether it is to be expected from a car that has been sat out in a wet Welsh winter. If it is the former, would anyone like to suggest a ballpark figure for rectifying the problem. Please advise me.

thanks,

Tilly

I had the same problem, as long as there isn't any mayo on the oilcheck stick, your head gasket is fine. Check the thermostat! Mine was broken, which causes the engine to get cold coolant when it doesn't want it!

The mayo is a sign that water is in the oil system somehow (as I think you know). It's not necessarily a bust head gasket though - it's very common on engines which have only made short journeys (not got hot enough to evaporate any water that has found its way in) or, indeed, been sitting idle in the wet. Try changing the oil (and filter), scooping out as much mayo as you can, take it for a good run and have another look. My bet is it will be much better. I'm not qualified to give advice on how to tell a blown head gasket, but I have changed a few when changing heads, and the only thing I can think to advise is that it should be considerably less than having it done on a modern car, as there's less to unbolt/replace, QED it's quicker.

PS Omne: Snap! Same time posting... Good advice re. dipstick - I never new that, but it stands to reason IMHO.

Thanks for the swift replies. I 've just been out to the garage to check on her. No mayo on dipstick, but 4 small drops of oil on the flattenened cardboard box under the engine.

Tilly

It'still a Minor. the Haynes/Porter restoration manual even says Minors very rarely don't leak any oil. And 3 or 4 drops isn't much. I had my filter changed in a garage, and she leaked more than a liter overnight. Badly fitted filter that was. But do check if you thermostat is closing, as this can be a simple solution. In my case it was anyway

This is a well known characteristic of the Minors and does not
mean that your head gasket is faulty. It is more likely a sign
that the car has not done any long hot runs for some time. The
fact that you drove it a fair distance and it got nice and hot would
bring the mayonnaise up to the rocker box. You will probably find
that after several long hot runs the amount lessens appreciably.
I have never seen a Minor which does not leak some oil(when
they were new it was considered that 500 miles to the pint was
'within'specification'!! according to the factory. How things have
improved.

Is that so? Then my minor is ok when it comes to oilconsumption (and a pint was something like half a liter?).

Yep - ish... Way back when, we were taught that "a litre of water's a pint and a quarter". Also "A metre measures 3 foot 3, it's longer than a yard, you see." More Imperial measureisms to shock your colleagus with!

And that is indeed a great hobby of mine, asking how much was that in inches again? Imperial rules! Even if i don't get half of it

Tilly,

The 1970 Minor should have the 1098cc engine, and i ran into an interesting (relevent) little problem with one a little while ago.

The conical air filter has a rubber tube to the rocker cover (about 10 inches - ok, 25cm) long. This is desigend to suck (gently) the fumes from the engine into the cylinders where it will be burnt.
My air filter has a tiny hole in the stub - the borrowed car had a full size hole. The result was that the air filter was soaked in oil (too much suck).

It's possible that all that oil/water emulsion has reached the air filter and made it damp/clogged. That gives the lack of power, slowing & not runnign symptoms. Have a check that the pipe isn't full of this stuff (rinse it out & dry in the airing cupboard!

I'd suggest replacing the air filter and checking the size of the hole soon. Any of the minor stores will be happy to send you the filter.

By the bye, when I had a 1200 cc beetle that always had the emulsion present on the inside of the filler cap - as it's air cooled it had to be condesation on a 15 mile journey to/from work. So it doesn't always mean problems.

Colin

Anyone any idea as to where to put this hose on a K&N filter?

Bigginger wrote

Way back when, we were taught that "a litre of water's a pint and a quarter".

Errm, nearly right. A pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter. A litre of water's a pint and three quarters.

Two more to get your head round: A gallon of water weighs ten pounds, and, A cubic foot of water weighs sixty two and a half pounds.


And... ' The pellet with the poison is in the vessel with the pestle, the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true' Although that one came from a Danny Kaye film.

'Doh! C'mon, it was 35 years ago when we went decimal that all this was drummed (obviously not hard enough) in at primary school!

Bigginger,

I agree with you, it was all drummed in a looong time ago. I guess this sort of stuff lays dormant in the brain and comes under the category of 'might be useful someday'. Well who'd have thought, when I was slaving to remember it during the late fifties, that one of the few uses for it would be that it would spring to my mind to enable me to sound a right clever clogs in the next century.

This morning when I got her out of the garage to have a look at her, I noticed 3 small spots of oil on the floor. When I went to check the oil, she was failrly low, but not on minimum.

Only 3 drops?!

They all do that miss, to quote someone's comment to me at some point... My old drive looked like an accident in an oil factory ('becca leaks diff oil as well as oil from the engine...). The new one's going to be bad, I fear, 'cos it's got a gravelled section. Anyway, off the point. Don't worry about smallish quantities of oil dripping from the Mog, big puddles are something to take note of.

About half a dozen or so times she seemed to lose power, and either I would have to pull off the motorway and let her catch her breath, and a couple of times, just slowing down to a near stop on the hard shoulder seemed to do the trick. It seemed at times that she was missfiring some of the time and at other times she just kind of jerked along.

This isn't normal though, and I can't instantly suggest what it is; most minors will cruise happily all day at 60-65 mph, some quite a bit quicker. Sudden power loss is indicative of some kind of fault.

Did she stay running the whole time, but just lack power? Or was the engine no longer actually running and you were just being carried by momentum?

Although he has just had her serviced

Do you know what was actually done at the service? Only 'service' can cover an awful lot of different things, from just topping up the oil and wiping some grease around (cynic that I am), to a really thorough job...

A couple of points to make here:
I've got a modern Astra which always has the mayonaisse on the filler cap. I've been to the dealer, and this is very common, simply due to condensation. My moggie has the mayo too, which I clean from the cap periodically.
As for the dripping oil, is almost always from the filter, right? Since I fitted the spin-off filter conversion last week, there are no more drips on the garage floor. Yippee!!

I really don't see what is such a hastle about the old type oil filters. They are easy to change and fitting a new rubber o-ring everytime is really very easy and eliminates them leaking. I find that if people rush the o-ring job or just don't bother changing them, then they're only creating more hastle for themselves and this is why people think they are hard to use.

or just don't bother changing them

I change the rubber bit every 4/5 changes (ie. ive done it once ) and mine doesn't appear to leak around the filter

C'mon, it was 35 years ago when we went decimal that all this was drummed (obviously not hard enough) in at primary school!

Well I left school before decimalisation.
As for the mayonnaise some oils are worse than others although why I dont know but years ago a MK1 Cortina I had was awful with Duckhams but 80% better with Castrol.

A bit of mayonaise is normal on a car that has been used very infrequently over winter.
The loss of power could be a lot of things and unless it has already stopped doing that you need to find out what is wrong. A properly serviced Minor 1000 is capable of 70mph + on the motorway for a couple of hours, so your short jaunt should be well within its capabilities when running correctly.

but 4 small drops of oil on the flattenened cardboard box under the engine.

Cool - I wish mine only dripped a few drops!! They tend to drip a lot more than that
I did manage top get one not to leak from the engine, but it did still drip occasionally from the back of the box...

One of the most crucial things in a service is to re-grease the front suspension. If it is not done regularly, it WILL lead to rapid wear and big bills at the MOT (or even worse - the suspension collapsing). Don't rely on a service place to do this unless you actually saw them do it!
Either you need to know how to check they have done it, or better still, invest £10 in a grease gun and save yourself a lot of money paying someone to do it.