I'm soooo depressed!!!
15 people from all over Pacific come to Sydney for a 2 day meeting. I
drive one of them the 40 minute drive into the city this evening
enjoying the opportunity to show of my 69B - he's from China and has
never seen one before! Its a perfect clear winters night, great way to
start the meeting sessions. All is well with the world.
Big dinner tonight to welcome everyone to Sydney.
Then it hits.....I'm driving home and going around a right hand turn
about 10 minutes from home, the car cuts out mid-turn. Takes a little
while to re-start, but eventually we are going along nicely. Then about
4 minutes from home I know something is not right. Oil pressure is still
good, temp is about 90C, would have guessed about 75C on this chilly
winters night but I'll keep an eye on it. About 2 minutes from home now,
rattling noises starting to come to the fore - all the gauges look good,
I drop speed to listen a little more carefully.
More rattles - quite constant now when accelerating - sort of the sound
you would expect if there was no oil or low oil, something like that.
One more turn and I'm in the driveway at home. Its 10:30 at night now,
can't see a thing so I bring the Mitsubishi in behind the MG and use its
headlights to see if anything is obviously wrong. aagahh!!! is that
SMOKE?? the carport stinks of something very hot and clouds of white
smoke are coming from the bonnet. I'm not feeling too happy as I pop the
catch and lift the bonnet.
Can't see much in the dark, but I can smell the heat, and my nice red
engine has a distinct black band around the spark plugs from front to
back. I get a torch and have a closer look.....
To cut a long sad story short, it appears I've popped the centre welsh
plug near the oil filter. Looks like the middle of it is missing and all
the water is somewhere between home and the
city.......S$%*&%@!!!!!!!!!!!
OK, how depressed am I likely to be about this when I look in the
morning?
I've not had this failure before, so I'm not sure what to expect. I know
welsh plugs are the designed point of failure if anything goes awry.
Does this mean replacement isn't TOO bad a proposition? Could I have
cooked something in the drive home? I am hoping the black band is burnt
paint (the engine was repainted a bit over a year ago, so I can imagine
the paint blackeneing if it got hot under there.
Thanks for any thoughts or experience you might share. I'll let you know
what it looks like in daylight.
Cheers,
Geoff
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