• The Roadster Factory Recovery Fund - Friends, as you may have heard, The Roadster Factory, a respected British Car Parts business in PA, suffered a total loss in a fire on Christmas Day. Read about it, discuss or ask questions >> HERE. The Triumph Register of America is sponsoring a fund raiser to help TRF get back on their feet. If you can help, vist >> their GoFundMe page.
  • Hey there Guest!
    If you enjoy BCF and find our forum a useful resource, if you appreciate not having ads pop up all over the place and you want to ensure we can stay online - Please consider supporting with an "optional" low-cost annual subscription.
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this UGLY banner)
Tips
Tips

TR2/3/3A I have this miss where the car will start and kinda idle

sp53

Yoda
Country flag
Offline
I have this miss where the car will start and kinda idle, but shakes and shimmies when the gas is pushed and will not gain power. I am stuck on this miss. I have replaced all the ignition parts, compression is 150 in all 4—took apart the carbs and blew out the lines and check for a clogged seat in the bowl—undid the fuel fine and checked for fuel pressure and there is enough.

Anyways can a car jump out of time while you are driving?

All this started about 3 blocks from the house after I went to wide open throttle. The car basically just lost most all of the power, but I did drive/ coast home barely down hill with the motor running.

Anyways can a car jump out of time while you are driving after you floor it?

That is the only thing that makes sense. Before I loosen the distributor and start moving that around, I want some opinions. WTF I just cannot figure this one Randall……
 

Bob Claffie

Jedi Knight
Country flag
Offline
I'd be looking for bent pushrod or broken rocker if it's missing all the time. In my case it was a bad (almost new) ignition wire. Doubt jumped timing is the cause.
 

charleyf

Luke Skywalker
Country flag
Offline
You state " all ignition parts" does that include the coil? New parts are not a guarantee of good parts. In fact it would lend suspicion to it being one of those "new" parts.
Have you checked the points gap.
I doubt that the car can " jump" out of timing. That would be the equivalent of nailing your feet to the floor and asking you to jump.
 
OP
S

sp53

Yoda
Country flag
Offline
Yes--- I put new points in and tried a different coil that I know is good also a condenser. The push rod is sounding more and more plausible. I thought that would show up in a compression test, but the more I think about it Bob the valve would be closed and the compression test would not be effected, but I would think I would hear it. I guess pull the valve cover. Yes Charley that is what I thought how can something jump when it is all tied together, but heck I am stuck
 
OP
S

sp53

Yoda
Country flag
Offline
Ok I pulled the valve cover and do not see anything or nothing jumps out at me. I have had this car for about 50 years and when it breaks I can usually fix it or know what it is. To me it sounds like the timing is advanced by the way the car idles; the engine seems to shake but run. When I pulled the plugs, they were clean with no carbon, but I only ran it for a few minutes. Yeh I hope it is simple but I am stuck.

OR maybe like the choke is pulled and the engine is running warm, but worse and hopping. I was playing around with the distributor knurled knob and timing right before this happened, but it should not matter unless something came lose inside the distributor???
 

bobhustead

Senior Member
Gold
Country flag
Offline
To be clear, did this start with an existing tune-up, carb adjustment, etc., that had a history of working fine or did you do any work shortly prior to onset. I would try letting it run and disconnect each plug wire in turn to figure out which cylinder is involved. Compression would certainly be affected if one or the other of the valves is not opening and closing properly.
Bob
 
OP
S

sp53

Yoda
Country flag
Offline
Sorry for the poor clarity, I have been chasing this weird miss for a while. I thought I had it by retarding the timing, but I went for test drive and everything was great until I felt the miss again, I floored to see what would happen and the car lost power.
 
OP
S

sp53

Yoda
Country flag
Offline
Good test Bob it always shows something.



I feel relieved because I think the mechanical is fine, and I cannot see a reason for this to be happening. I would say coil, but I tried a different one. It is either fuel or spark. Perhaps I have it too lean from playing around, and it is starved for fuel. But again I think with SU by pulling the choke it should run. The carbs are simple at least I would say that.

It will start and run poorly. I have not gotten out of the car for long, so not much running testing yet. I did take the plugs out again and looked at them after it ran for a few minutes. They were squeaky clean with no carbon which is often not the case with this car. I seem too to be chasing rich fuel problems often instead. I have never had a lean problem; maybe I should turn the nut out a couple of flats to see if that makes a difference. But again the SU choke should open up jets; it does.---------
stuck
 

DavidApp

Yoda
Country flag
Offline
Have you looked at the centrifugal advance balance weights? I had one come apart one time and only managed limp home. I think the springs came off so it was just flapping around.

David
 

bobhustead

Senior Member
Gold
Country flag
Offline
I have had brand new condensers be bad. I tuned my swamp buggy once and the carburetor started working badly. I took it apart twice to clean it out. No dice.
Just for the helluvit, I put the old condenser back and, as a wise man on this forum says, most carburetion problems are ignition. By replacing all ignition parts, do you include cap and wires? Do try the pulling of one plug wire at a time to try isolating a single cylinder.
Bob
 
OP
S

sp53

Yoda
Country flag
Offline
Yes I swapped out the cap, condenser, and wires. I like the distributor spring idea David. The way it lost power the spring would make sense. My thoughts last night were to richen the fuel mix 3 flats and try and start it. I could try hooking up timing light and try to see if the mark moves. Maybe I will set the idle up to try and keep it running to do some testing before I try and start it, but taking the plate out of the distributor is not difficult.

thanks you guys
 

Rod-H

Senior Member
Bronze
Country flag
Offline
One other thought... I had a GT6 many moons ago that did the same thing. It turned out the distributor bushings were worn and out of round. It took forever to figure out because it ran with a slight miss at idle, then just lost power when accelerating. At the time I was on a road trip and ended up putting a dizzy from a junkyard in it to get home.

Rod
 
OP
S

sp53

Yoda
Country flag
Offline
I was very optimistic that it was the distributor springs, but they were good. Tomorrow I will try another different condenser and coil again. My experience with condensers is either they work or the car will not run at all.
 

charleyf

Luke Skywalker
Country flag
Offline
For me I was about 80 miles from home stopped for a long lunch and was back in the car. I got less than a mile when I got two loud backfires. Went another 1/4 mile and the car flat died. It was the condensor.
 

Sarastro

Obi Wan
Silver
Country flag
Offline
I think you should troubleshoot the problem instead of randomly trying things. If you are concerned about the timing, check it with a timing light. Rev up the engine and see if the centrifugal advance is working. It's easy enough to do, and you can rule out those things.

Ignition capacitors available these days are complete trash. Even if you used a known-good one, it can still fail. The kind of problem you are describing sounds a lot like that to me. If you have a bad capacitor, the points will get burned pretty quickly, so see what they look like after some use. A bad capacitor should also give you a weak spark at the plugs; that's easy to check. If you have a strong spark when you hold each of the plug wires close to the block, it pretty much has to be one or more of the plugs.

As far as the carbs go--there is a difference between fuel flow and pressure. You can have the correct pressure when you disconnect the line and attach a gauge, but low flow due to restrictions or a pump problem. So, you could run the fuel into a container, crank the engine, and you should get a pretty good squirt.
 
OP
S

sp53

Yoda
Country flag
Offline
Well I did the test that Bob suggested by pulling the plugs wires one at a time. I started with #4 and worked back to # 3 ------- #3 and #4 made no difference when unplugged, but #2 and # 1 did. What had happened was the rubber gasket on the float bowl rotted away and a chuck went into that little one inch long by ÂĽ hole area between the bowl and the jet assembly. I was running off the front carb only at the last. The problem would come and go and then finally stayed. Heck I am very happy to find it. This thing had me good. I just kept going around in circles thinking constantly and testing. This is a first for me after driving this car since 1972.

Thanks for your help and feedback, Steve
 
Similar threads
Thread starter Title Forum Replies Date
jlaird Where in the world is Miss Agatha? Spridgets 24
MikeAH100M High Temp Engine Miss Austin Healey 2
V MGB Mystery fastener from '66. Did I miss something? MG 6
jlaird Miss Spridgets 3
jlaird Just may be the new Miss. Agatha. Sat will tell, only 37 miles away. Spridgets 26
jlaird Name the new Miss Agatha Spridgets 1
H Miss Eva Traveled to Cars and Coffee on Saturday Spridgets 7
S TR2/3/3A this little miss in the engine Triumph 17
S TR2/3/3A little miss problem Triumph 12
PC Morgan fans - how did I miss this? Other British Cars 2
Flash_Harry MGB Fixed a miss! MG 7
H Richmond VA 1960 Bugeye Bringing Miss Eva back to life. Spridgets 453
GTP1960 TR2/3/3A Self canceling turn signal, "hit or miss" Triumph 1
W Miss Agatha on the market Spridgets 13
jlaird Miss Agatha Spridgets 14
jlaird Miss Agatha jumping up and down Spridgets 0
jlaird Miss Agatha has a new price Spridgets 45
jlaird Miss Agatha not sold Spridgets 3
jlaird Miss Agatha Spridgets 8
jlaird Miss Agatha's build photos Spridgets 1
Bob McElwee Miss BT has a new home [probably a new name too!] Austin Healey 1
N Miss when when accelerating Spridgets 12
69sprite New trailer - Did I miss the mark? Spridgets 8
S TR2/3/3A Bad fuel perhaps water tr3 miss Triumph 0
jlaird Miss Agatha Spridgets 6
scoutll Miss Chuff is Gone - A Midget Owner, I am Not Spridgets 16
V 1275 slight miss, what's the cause??? Spridgets 20
hondo402000 TR6 TR6 Developed a Miss Triumph 7
jlaird Miss Agatha got out today Spridgets 2
jlaird Miss Agatha had a visitor Spridgets 2
DNK Did I miss this??? MG 1
O TR2/3/3A TR3 Engine Miss Part 2 Triumph 11
O TR2/3/3A TR3 Engine Miss Triumph 5
JPSmit Miss Triss met a relative tonight Spridgets 2
Tim Tucker TR4/4A TR4 High RPM miss Triumph 18
jlaird Miss Agatha got out Spridgets 0
jlaird Miss Agathas adventure Spridgets 4
jlaird Was in the garage getting Miss Agatha Spridgets 4
jlaird Miss Agatha Spridgets 5
saysprite Healey 100 in Miss Marple: The Secret of Chimneys Austin Healey 3
jlaird Miss Agatha was trying to tell me something Spridgets 4
longbridgehealey 100-6 has a miss when accdelerating Austin Healey 16
jlaird Had Miss Agatha on the road Spridgets 1
jlaird Miss Agatha status Spridgets 0
jlaird Miss Agatha is the only one Spridgets 15
jlaird Miss Agatha Spridgets 8
longbridgehealey very slight miss Austin Healey 3
scoutll Miss Chuff hangin' out with her new Posse Spridgets 7
jlaird Miss Agathas Dizzy Spridgets 7
jlaird Miss Agatha is all excited Spridgets 5

Similar threads

Top