I am an MGB newbie. Picked up my 1971 MGB tonight. Got almost home with it when it began choking out. Seemed to be running on only a couple of cylinders. Somehow managed to get it home. Sad after the excitement of fulfilling a 30 yr old dream. Anyway I have no experience but feel I am about to set on a new educational route. This forum looks like a good place to begin. Here's the best I can do with regard to explaining the symptoms. The car ran fine for several miles after picking it up (however it was not good at idling at all). Then it began to sputter, I guess it reminded me of my old days with fouled spark plugs on a 2-cycle motocycle engine. It got progressively worse. At one point it just died. I pulled on some of the spark plug leads to see if it was maybe bad connectors. Must have been stopped 5 min. I got it started and in fact it ran okay for about 50 feet and began to die again. Managed to get in the driveway. I pulled the plugs and discovered that plug 1 looked wet with fuel, plug 2 was not as bad, plugs 3&4 had a nice rust brown color and were dry. I know the car has a new fuel pump. Haven't had a chance to crawl under it yet but it's likely 3rd party. Inside the hood by the fuel line is a Purolator fuel regulator, set to #2 (whatever that means). Could the fuel pressure be too high and that's what's killing cylinders 1/2 since that carb is the first in fuel line?. Maybe it's as simple as changing the pressure setting (could that also cause the bad idling?). Have no idea if the high number on the regulator means more or less pressure. The car has SU-HS4 carbs. Since I am new to the forum I hope I haven't run on too long. Any suggestions for a rookie that is diving into the mgb tech jargon would be greatly appreciated. Hope to get some driving in before winter gets here.
Thanks to all.
Thanks to all.