• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.

    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Average MPG

[ QUOTE ]
Well, you can certainly time the car by ear and get it darn close. But if your timing has to be way off in order to run right, you may have other issues and changing the timing may just be a band-aid. Perhaps a full tune-up is in order? Have you inspected the condition of the distributor and advance mechanism?

[/ QUOTE ]
I have replaced the Dizzy cap, rotor, condensor, points, plugs & wires. I do not know how to check the condition of the Distibutor or advance mechanisim. I can tell you that the noise is much worse now after I re-adjusted the valves to .012" while hot. Does that tell you anything? All valves go up & down quite nicely unless I missed something.
 
Suck on it, does it move??
 
[ QUOTE ]
I can tell you that the noise is much worse now after I re-adjusted the valves to .012" while hot.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not sure. It's difficult to diagnose a sound by description. Any chance of a good recording? Valves usually get less noisy when closed up.

[ QUOTE ]
Suck on it, does it move??

[/ QUOTE ]

Only if it feels good.

Sorry. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif
 
And you should be.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Point is not moot and I am not selling. The car is running OK but the clacking - deisel sound - does not sit well with me. I had a club member tell me that the timing was off. I said that I set it at 10Âş static but need to set it with my light. He said toss the light, loosen the dizzy & start her up. Grab the dizzy & turn counterclockwise. When it starts running better it's OK. Does this sound like good advice & shoul I try this.


[/ QUOTE ]

Hi, vping:

Sorry for the "moot point" quip - seeing it after 24 hrs, it DOES sound kinda wise-guyish. The timing advise you got is actually pretty close. I would simply add, turn the dizzy until you hear a pinging sound when you gun the engine. By "pinging sound" I mean an internal noise that sounds like the muffled sound of marbles being shaken in a tin can. That means you have advanced the spark a tad to much - turn the dizzy back (retard) just a bit from that point.
 
Ok not sure about the sucking part of this thread but thanks. Not going to go there to keep this clean - but tempted.

My worries are that turning the car on with the dizzy loose is a bad thing but if you guys say ok I will.

Does turning it cwise, retard the timing and ccwise advance the timing? Just want to make sure I am clear on this.

Another bit of advice I was given was to keep the car in 4th gear. Take it down to about 20 mph and then jamb on the accelerator. If it pings adjust accordingly.

I would love to be able to diagnose & repair these issues myself for the remainder of my MG days. Sending something that I have worked so hard on to someone else to tweak just kills me. I rarely have anybody do anything for me in my life and don't want to start here.

Had a crown put in yesterday so I could not get to it. Today I wll head out across the floods in the driveway and make it to the comfort of the Garage. I will try and get a recording and post it on youtube.

I am hoping this is the solution and hoping it is not something worse. At first they thought I had a rod knock which I am not sure I know how that sounds. How does that sound and can I elimiate that from the equation?

For WIW, I bought the car from the DPO and he bought it from a PO which I call the PPO. He owns a local LBC shop and still remembered the car. PPO replaced the bearings while he had the car but not that they needed them but because he had them and had the engine out while replacing the tranny. This is the only engine work to my knowledge done to the car and the DPO never drove it. I know this because of what the PPO told me (they were friends), so there are not many miles on those bearings.
 
Ok, lets get to sucking.

Suck on the end of the vacume input to the distributor, use a hose if necessary, see if the insides of the distributor move when you do this, takes a bit of effort. If the insides move your advance is working and you can rule that out.

Just make the distrbutor loose so you can turn it with a bit of and effort by hand and it does not move by its self. Ahh, watch where you put your hand to turn the distributor, lots of voltage there. Useing the vacume advance part as a handle works well.

Before you start mark what you got so it is easy to set it back when testing for looseness etc.
 
Sucking - The vaccum goes from the rear carb to a little canister mounted on a bracket at the back of the valve cover. the small diamter pipe goes from this canister to the vacuum on the dizzy. There are no other connection or interuptions in this line. Is the the line you are referring to? I guess I'd remove the cap for this, attach a small hose so I can move to the dizzy side and look inside of it to see if it moves. If it does, vacumm ok. If it does not move, I guess I have a vacuum problem & what should I do. I describe the vacuum lines in detail in case others are not familiar with the simplicity of a '67.

Is pinging a sign of an advanced or retarded timing or will it happen in either case? I asssume that the recommendation to retard the timing was to stop the clacking that I have. It does not sound like a ping to me.
 
VPING, the advance diaphram it the metal colored thingee mounted on the distribtor. Yes a small dia. line runs from it to the carb or intake manifold in some cases. Remove line at diaphram, remove distribtor cap. Place a rubber tube on the diaphram fitting where the connected line was, apply suction and see if inards move.
 
WIll do tonight when I get hope & try and get some sound bytes posted.
 
Back
Top