Hello all,
As you may remember, my 1974 'B has started putting out some
excessive crankcase pressures - enough to blow my oil filler cap
right off! Right now, the car is also going through an excessive
amount of oil, but it isn't putting out a blue cloud of smoke.
If I broke a ring, wouldn't the engine smoke like mad? What
about a holed piston, wouldn't there be more smoke than the small
puff I see at start-up and hard acceleration? Wouldn't I also
notice a power loss? What could cause a burned piston?
I did notice two oddities with my car yesterday. I pulled the
oil cap and put my hand over the filler neck - there was a constant
stream of air pressure blowing out. If one piston was hosed,
wouldn't I just get an occasional burst of air at idle? Another odd
thing, it seems that my exhaust note changed. It sounds more
'sloppy', not as tight as it was before. One explanation might be
the fact that my system came loose over spring break and I had to
tighten up the clamps and I found a few little leaks.
I'm going out today to try to clean the tappet breather cover,
in the hopes that my oil consumption and crankcase pressures will
drop. One last question - I only need this engine to survive until
the summer, then the car will probably 'rest' until next
spring/summer when I can afford to get a rebuilt one and begin my
transformation. Will I run into any serious problems running the
car with a broken ring/hosed piston? Other than oil consumption,
that is! ;-)
Thanks, and I'll let everybody know what I see after I get the
tappet cover cleaned...
Michael S. Lishego
http://www.mgb.bc.ca/virtualgarage/
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