Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi Im in need of help on this one cos I am a little puzzled.

Engine has been reconditioned and has been refitted with a HS4 and cast LCB manifold with custom stainless side exhaust at 1.5" bore.
HS4 Red Spring + M1 Needle
30mm carb spacer fitted onto water cooled type mini alloy manifold.

Little or no attempt to fire. Might cough or splutter maybe even run for 5s if I pour fuel into the carb.

What I've done/checked:
- Fuel pump pumps roughly 1 litre a minute.
- nice spark throughout.
- points at 15thou
- tappets been set
- done valve timing on cylinder 1 compression stroke and rocks good
- gone from positive to negative earth and alternator conversion (if relevant)
- Same points, dizzy and coil from the old engine
- Carb apart and cleaned. Slide rises and falls steadily. Fuel runs through jet nice.
- Leads in the correct position, anti clockwise 1342.
- battery on trickle or boostcharge while turning it over.
- New spark plugs.

Running out of ideas in what to do. Any help would be appreciated thanks.

My thoughts?

Have you swapped the coil connections over, they should be reversed when goung from positive to negitive earth.

Otherwise I would favour ignition timing, loosen the distributor and while someone else is trying to start it slowly twist the distrubutor in each direction.

kevin s wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2020 11:54 pm My thoughts?

Have you swapped the coil connections over, they should be reversed when goung from positive to negitive earth..

Otherwise I would favour ignition timing, loosen the distributor and while someone else is trying to start it slowly twist the distributor in each direction.

I wouldn't worry too much about the Coil connections.
Yes they should be changed over, because without doing so the spark is jumping from the outer of the Plug to the Centre post; it results in a little less energy at the spark, and I've heard tales it can shorten Plug life, but it shouldn't be causing your problems.
When I brought my car, it had been running for years yet I found the connections had never been swapped over. The Spark was a little stronger once I swapped it, but hadn't been an issue at all.

Like Kevin, I would look to the Dissy position. As you're using Points still, how about checking the Dwell Angle?

Dwell angle, at cranking speeds should make very little, if any difference to starting. I would be checking the plugs to see if they are over-wet or dry and go from there.

What voltage at the coil when cranking? Is the starter motor suspect. Lots of things to consider, even down to battery and earth connections.

I fitted an HS4 to a reconditioned 1275. I had problems getting it to run other than on full choke, although it would fire up and run very roughly. The solution was partly timing, but I did find that I needed to set the AAU needle a lot richer than the normal 12 flats down initial setting, about another 8 from memory. I've still to get it to a rolling road to get the best out of it, and it may well need a different needle, but it does drive okayish.

I would double check you are not 180 degrees out on your plug order. I made this mistake in the past and was convinced I had it corrwcr. This can occur by different locations on the distributor drive on ths recon engine particular if you are just swapping over the compenents