1. Home
  2. Car Maintenance
  3. Flooded rover v8?

Flooded rover v8?

Just bolted the top end of my v8 back together after cleaning out all the tappets (due to a noisy one), which I later discovered to be a "characteristic" of the Rhodes tappets the previous owner had fitted. The Rover v8 is a lovely engine to play with, nice old AF bolts, and simple push rods, quite a fun engine to play with.

Anyway: I striped and cleaned (engine de-greaser) the tappets before reassembly with my favourite cam lube, leaving the tappets empty of oil.

On restating (or not) she caught once after cranking then died and now refuses to start.

On removing a plug she was flooded. I'm a little young to remember flooded engines (I remember my dad having a few problems); with digital injection and high HT ignition flooding it nearly a thing of the past I would think.

The battery is now on charge for a couple of days before I can have another go.

I am wondering if the tappets may be pumped up and thus not giving the compression I need? She turns over at about the same rate as she used to, if compression is down then I would guess she would turn over faster? Red herring probably.

I removed all the plugs and dried them but I guess the chambers are still soaking. I will leave it a few days to dry out.

Any good tips from old hands at this engine, its running twin SU's with a choke. I usually pull choke out pump accelerator twice and she catches first time. However due to the cleaned out tappets I turned her over without choke for a about 20 seconds to bring up the oil pressure, which probably didn't help matters!

The plugs looks a little black, but she always runs a little rich, seems to like it that way.

Any hints would be much appreciated!

Will

Reply to
Will Reeve
Loading thread data ...

The tappets you should sit in a tub of fresh oil for 24hrs and then compress and release them in your fingers acouple of times whilst submerged tokeep them full of oil. However you say it doesnt seem to be spinning over any faster than usual, so I wouldnt think they have pumped up. You tend to do the above so theyre is some oil in em to prevent big rattles when it does start anyhow.

Pumping the throttle on an SU does nothing.

SU Floats and needle valves do tend to stick open when they have been dry of fuel for abit so this may be your cause- the spinning over of the engine just allowed the overflowing float chambers fuel into the cylinders. I'd check this first.

If you have an electric fuel pump i think i would disable this during the initial oil pressure building cranking stage, then enable it whilst still spinning the engine over - or pull the carbs down and clean / replace the needle valves.

Tim..

Reply to
Tim (Remove NOSPAM.

The message from " Tim \(Remove NOSPAM." contains these words:

And don't forget to refill the dashpots.

Reply to
Guy King

is to pour a couple of kettles of boiling water over the inlet manifolds to heat the air a bit but keep it away form the intakes or the plug leads. It did work on a v12 jag that we tried to start for 2 days with no luck until we did this and its worked on various petrol engines since.

>
Reply to
Gary Millar

Didn't think the Rover V8 had hydraulic tappets.

Reply to
Conor

it does.

Reply to
jeremy

Course it has. IIRC, the first 'common' UK built engine to use them. Apart from Rolls, of course.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.