Grrr...Valley Gasket to seal or not to seal.

Why not? The standard one will come with a guarantee to split along the middle seam within no time whatsoever...

Yep, take time, drink some tea, work it through bit by bit...

I was thinking of something a little stronger... flattened the battery now so no choice.

He was spluttering very very occasionally, has a spark or at least HT going down the leads. I've left the carbs on the inlet so I know that they are sound as I remove them as one lump. Pump can be heard whiring in the tank and petrol can be smealt but thats as far as I managed to get. PITA that it's 6 miles away at the mo, hands are cut to bits.

On the bright side the oil pressure came up ok after swapping the oil cooler pipes.. I had visions of fun there.

Is there anything more to fitting the lifters than soaking in oil and inserting them?? I assume it's one size fits all?

I've a sinking feeling that I'm going to end up removing the valley gasket and refitting it minus any surplus gunge.

Lee D

On or around Tue, 22 Nov 2005 18:43:20 +0000, Mother enlightened us thusly:

I meant, I'd not have bothered with hylomar on a composite gasket. The composite one I've seen was steel with a rubberoid stuff on each side, and should seal OK.

Still doubt the sealing stuff per se is the problem. You've got to have a

Lifters... hmmm. If new ones, it might take rather a lot of cranking to prime them, I spose.

Well, I'd have primed them before fitting them - by giving them the old squash, let them expand, and repeat until they pump up solid (ie full of oil) whilst they were soaking.

Are you sure the HT leads are correctly fitted?

And the spark plugs didn't remain in the heads whilst they were being fettled did they? If they did and they've had a dose of parts cleaner they may be somewhat reluctant to actually produce a spark.

Yep nice sparkly expensive new ones (it ran before being pulled apart) with numbers on em :0)

Er'm ,...... yes.... I'd assumed that this had done them the world of good given they looked like new. I'll have to remove them tomorrow anyway, I'll no doubt give them a blast with the blow lamp should cure any after effects shouldn't it? I need to check fuel is getting to them and could do with removing the lot to crank the lump over to be sure the lifter are lifting.

Lee D

And you've honestly remembered which number goes where? I've had a sudden dose of brain fade and messed up V8 leads on a few occasions when I've forgotten that different engine manufacturers number their cylinders in different ways.

Not all cleaning solvents have this effect - but some of them seem to impregnate the ceramic bit with something conductive so the plug just shorts rather than producing a spark in the gap. I guess the old blowtorch trick will fix them - but I've never tried; for the price of spark plugs I just replace them.

I dont see how you could have buggered something up by fitting a gasket...

I'm now getting pretty good at troubleshooting cars that wont run after i touch them ;)

I generally do: check for fuel check for sparks check that sparks and ignition related stuff is happening at the correct time and in the right order (so HT check, dissy check and then piston/crank/cam check)

I'm sure you will work it out eventually. it sometimes just needs a nights rest and it'll kick in perfectly!

are you sure you havent just knocked the dissy about or something?

The HT lead diagram in my 101 repair manual is wrong too! You didnt use one of them didya Lee? ;)

Now we're getting somewhere - the chances are that it is nothing to with the gasket with or without sealant. Look for something silly that you've left off, leads crossed etc..

Nope, I followed the numbers on the Inlet manifold summat like 2468 down the Right and 1357 down the left if my memory serves me right.

Nothings moved at the Dizzy end either.

Lee D

Your list seems to have omitted flatten battery, rush to pick up kids, go swiming and sulk ;-)

Nope, could well have done, but before I f*ck summat else I want to be sure. Can't check the timing now as the battery is dead. Will check it tomorrow.

All this would be alot easier if I tossed a few hundred quid in a brazier... scoured my hands with a wire brush and then poured on some nice citric cleaner. Ho Hum!

Lee D

Not Rover but as good as it gets...

;-) I really should have added the flatten battery step as it usually happens to me - but i now own a very heavy duty battery charger and jump starter so it doesnt stop me for long!

Atleast it hasnt taken you over 6 months to get the bloody bits to fix morph. I'm currently chasing up leads to get a set of piston rings specially made to finish off my saab before i can even start on the

I think i might have lied about my workshop manual being wrong. I've just checked it and it matches to my 90 manual. Perhaps i'm going mad as im sure it was that i went off when i only got 5/8 leads right. It still ran though.

Have you checked that the coil and the ballast resitor are both getting power in the right places? wouldnt be unheard of for the ballast resistor to fail all of a sudden.

Nope.. all I checked was that there was HT in the plug leads by attacking the super strobe. No time to try anything else. Given there was HT then I suspect the electrics are fine. Given they haven't been touched I'd expect that which is why my initial suspect was a weak mixture due to a poorly sealed vally gasket.

Time will tell.. sleep beckons -- I can almost bend my fingers again.. must be time for more therapy :0)

Lee D

"Lee_D" wrote >>

My S111 has always really wanted to start first time and has, if you understand what I mean, but on Monday when I went out to take it for it's MOT the damn thing refused to start and was just as you describe. I got out the WD 40 sprayed all the leads and away she went and has, once more, started first time ever since. Maybe the recent cold spell did something to the leads. Worth a try.

Lee_D uttered summat worrerz funny about:

Well after a rather sleepless night with a million possibilities running around inside my head I got up bright and breezy and set out to sort Morph. I did ponder just purchasing a new set of plugs and a new valley gasket and biting the bullet to save another trip in to town. I am however tight as a ducks arse when it comes to these things. I dug out the blow lamp and set off to Ma and Pa's... Foggy than a foggy thing in a fog factory. Got there and whipped the Dizzy cap off again and wiped out anything that wasn't visible to inspection (Dizzy caps probably only done 500 miles). Quadruple checked the plug leads.. they were fine. Checked the dizzy was tight and not likely to have been leaned upon. Whipped out all the plugs.. some had very minor mush up them, remains of anything that had been left in the bores and no doubt any oil that had worked it's was in yesterday during my cranking session.

Turned over the engine with no plugs.. or that was the plan.. Was stuck in gear , then the starter jammed on...smoke and panic for 30 seconds followed by much cossing. Tryed to turn him over again with the gearbox in neutral and the battery (charged overnight) was now dead again....

I then put the battery on charge in the workshop, set the genny about charging a second battery and swapped to the aux battery once that had some therapy.

In the mean time I lined up the spark plugs like an SAS squad they were in for some treatment... WD40 to clean off any invisible megaconductive residue from the parts wash treatment. Then emery paper on the tips to clean up for a good spark. These plugs again have only done 500 miles max (quite a while in a 101 Ambi...well mine anyway!). Once they appeared spotless I lined them up on a brick safely away from any flamables and then gave them a light toasting with the blow lamp. The ends immediately got greyer and cleaner/dryer looking (didn't appear that bad in the first place).

Now given I've lit the blow lamp and done very little fire starting I cast the flame into the open bores , a couple go "shoosh" as the remains of an vapour get burnt off but in the main it was a none event.

Bunged it all together..... hit the starter and he's definately trying to fire now on the first turn. I ease off the starter for some unknown reason but it looks like the starter has jammed on again. Possibly cooked it the day before with all that cranking.

Miffed again, the battery goes on charge. Starter gets pulled off.. rolled around.. tested on some jump leads.. rolled around and prodded a bit more and bunged back on again.

Tried to fire him up once the batteries were charged sufficently and

VRRROooooooooooooooooOOOOMMMMM

WOP WOP WOP WOP WOP WOP

VRRRROOOOOOooooooooooooMMMMM

WOP WOP WOP WOP

Yeah I know..funny sounding starter motor

;0)

Well impressed and relieved at the same time.

Whats more I only lost one bolt in the whole exercise!

Lee D

Superb! Well done :-)

Marginally better than (cough) having a spare one left over that you don't know wot it's for, though... ;-)