The name of the game is "Confirm my fears"
This weekend I spent some quality time with my '72 B. The most pressing
concern was to adjust the carbs to bring the idle down from 1500 to less
than 1000 and get rid of the stench of running too rich. To this end I
was successul. After the car had run for about 45 minutes I took it for
a check out spin, upon returning to the driveway I was greeted by a HUGE
oil puddle right where the car had been parked. I quickly parked the
car and checked the oil level, which was slightly overfull. The oil cap
had a slight brown foam in it and I found the oil leak to be from the
dipstick tube as there was oil all over the distributer and starter. I
pulled plug #1 & #2. #1 was wet (not oil or gas) #2 dry and sooty.
Exterior of cylinder head at #1 had sign of coolant leak. My guess is
this: (1) The DPO knew of a headgasket leak and that the car was running
on 3 cylinders....thus oddly adjusted carbs. (2) The headgasket at #1
is blown causing both external coolant leak as well as internal coolant
consumption (3) Headgasket is also blown so that combustion gasses are
causing excess crank pressures and leakage at dipstick tube.
How close do you think I am?
Fred Cheney
'72 MGB
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