After countless hours of frustration I now have a fully functional,
smog legal, nearly rainproof, registered MGB roadster!
And it passed the smog with flying colors, CO was 0.93% (max. allowable
is 5%) and HC was 49ppm (max. allowable is 350).
But that old Fizzball magic/curse reared its ugly head again. With 14
seconds left in the final phase of the test, the smog machine crashed
and had to be rebooted! The entire test was conducted again with no
problems, but I didn't breathe easy until the certificate appeared
on the printer (naturally this was at a British Petroleum station). A
quick trip across the street to AAA and their no-waiting DMV service
and I was on my way, only a few minutes late to work.
So what was the problem? That's still a good question. There were two
problems on the front carburettor:
1) I don't think I've seen any material that explained that there are
two types of floats, one for the front carb, one for the rear. I
had a rear float on my front carb. It wasn't closing at the right
point and so the incoming fuel wasn't shut off.
2) The seals for the choke mechanism were leaking. This was a major
problem, the front carb always ran rich, like it was on choke,
because fuel was making its way past these seals.
Here's how my novice-eyes see it:
This rich-running carb was sending way too much fuel into the 1 and 2
cylinders of a fresh, clean engine. This fuel kept them nice and clean
and also slipped past the rings and diluted the oil in the pan. This
extra thin oil was easily able to slip _up_ past the rings as well, where
it semi-burned but mostly exited from the tailpipe. But some of this
fuel/oil escaping through the exhaust valves caused that popping sound
in the muffler and heated the muffler to the extent that I could not
touch the floor of the car under the left seat, even after driving on
cool, rainy days.
New seals and the proper float and my #1 spark plug is now the
textbook-perfect color.
An unrelated event:
My windshield washer fluid bag was on the left side of the car, its
clear hose connected to a larger hose running across the top of the
radiator and into the pump, which is on the right side. The pump
wasn't able to pull the fluid through this long hose. I realized that
the bag was originally located on the right side of the car, next to
the pump, and for some reason the bag had been reloacted and the larger
hose added. But it didn't work! I moved the bracket that the bag hangs
from back to the right side of the car and now the washer works just
fine. Anyone out there have the windshield washer bag on the left
side? I can't see why this was done, it didn't work and accomplished
nothing.
Now that I have one I'm gonna officially register with the NA MGB A!
-Dan "Just in time for this nice weather" Dasaro
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