I was able to back out of the garage and drive around the yard over the weekend! The rebuilt starter from O'Reilly did the trick. Success did not come without a few small setbacks, but nothing major.
It all started a couple of weeks ago when I decided I wasn't doing myself any favors by putting off buying a starter any longer. I picked it up on the 30th after a few days waiting for it to arrive at my local store. It was easy to install. I've had the starter on and off so many times it's almost like pumping gas at this point.
So, with the starter in and a new battery, I decided to turn the key to see what would happen. I unplugged the coil because I wanted to try to build up some oil pressure before starting but I was never able to get any pressure. The good news was that it cranked beautifully. I never thought I would like that sound so much.
Not getting oil pressure worried me a little, but not terribly. I had the same problem back when I was trying to get it started originally a few years ago. The oil pressure jumped right up once I got it started. So with that in mind, I hooked up the coil and tried to start it. Nothing. Just lots of cranking. The sound that brought me such joy a few short minutes ago now became a source of frustration. I decided to clean up for the night and try again the next day.
Saturday evening I decided to try some starting fluid. I sprayed it in the carbs and cranked and it fired right up, only to die after burning off the starting fluid. I did this a couple of times while keeping a good eye on the oil pressure gauge. It jumped to life pretty quickly, but then I heard an odd sound. It was a large- amounts-of-liquids-splashing-onto-the-concrete-garage-floor sound that I'm really not very fond of. I quickly scrambled to my hands and knees to determine the source and found oil literally pouring from between where the oil filter housing and the engine block meet. This freaked me out at first and I decided again to clean up and call it a night in frustration.
I went to bed with two things on my mind. 1-the car is spewing oil like the Lakeview Gusher of 1910 and 2-it won't run without starting fluid being introduced into the intake. The good news was that 1-I had oil pressure and 2-I knew my starting problem had to be fuel related.
I got up Sunday morning hoping to correct my huge oil leak. After some research on MGBexperience.com I hypothesized that I might not have tightened down the bolt that holds the oil filter housing against the block with enough torque. When reassembling the engine, I was probably thinking that rubber seal didn't require or couldn't withstand a whole lot of torque. The only way to prove a hypothesis is to test it, so, I crawled under the car, attached the appropriate socket to my biggest, baddest breaker bar and tightened it until I was afraid to tighten anymore.
I then added about a quart of oil (the amount I had lost while the car ran a total of maybe 15 seconds), gave it another spritz of starting fluid, and she roared to life....only to die again a couple of seconds later. Frustrating, but expected. My main concern was the oil leak. I didn't hear anything. I got down and looked under and didn't see anything either. I tried the process over again several times with the same results. Oil leak problem solved. Now I just needed to solve the running dilemma.
I had narrowed the problem down to fuel delivery because I knew I had spark, compression, and that the timing was close enough to run on starting fluid. I began haphazardly messing with carb adjustments. Dumb move, but it provided the results I was looking for. I was able to get it running very poorly. I had to leave the choke in the full on position and it was backfiring out of both the tailpipe and the carbs. It would also rev up to about 3000 and then drop off to about 600 before backfiring a couple of times and then revving back up and the cycle started all over again. I tried slowly backing off the choke, but it would just die when I did that. A little research and brainstorming lead me to believe that I had a huge vacuum leak somewhere in the intake area.
Fast forward to Friday and I had some garage time. I left the office at noon, which promised to give me several good hours in the garage. I took the carbs and heatshield off and retorqued the intake manifold to the head. I applied gasket sealant to all 6 of the gaskets in this area and slowly and methodically put it all back together to make sure everything was installed correctly. I also adjusted the valves to make sure the clearances were correct. I turned the key and still had basically the same running issues. Vacuum hypothesis disproved.
The twin SUs had been rebuilt recently, and 1-I had no idea where the rebuilder had left any of the adjustments and 2-I had screwed with the mixture screws quite a bit just trying to get it to run, so I decided to start from square one with them. A little internet research provided the information I was looking for. I turned the mixture screws clockwise as far as they would go (full rich) and then backed off two full turns on each carb. I pulled out the choke, turned the key and it fired almost instantly and ran up to about 3500 RPM and just sat there as smooth as silk. That was a definite improvement over what I had been experiencing before. 3500 is too fast for idle, but that was easily adjustable. I just turned backed off of the idle screws until it was running in the 700-800 range. Needless to say, I was pleased. I let it warm up a touch and backed off the choke and it ran almost flawlessly for as long as I would let it.
I tried to check the timing with my timing gun but it jumps all over the place. I think my distributor may need to be rebuilt. I have it running pretty good right now. I had my wife help me bleed the clutch Saturday. I'm not sure I got all of the air out because the pushrod travel is not its full range of motion, but it seems to work. I may spend a little more time on that in the coming days.
After bleeding the clutch I took it down off of the stands for the first time in months. It was really good to see it sitting on its own tires. I couldn't resist the urge. I fired it up, backed it out of the garage, and took it for a quick spin around the yard. What a blast! The brakes need to be bled and I need new tires and then we will be ready for the open road.
Stay Tuned!
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