Just before my son left for college he was saying our 74 Midget (his daily
driver for the last 2 years) wasn't running right. I finally got around to
looking at it last night. I checked points, plugs, wires etc and found
nothing unusual. Then I decided to do a compression check. Number one
cylinder was about 100 lbs. 2, 3, & 4 came in at about 145 lbs. Trouble in
#1. Hoping it would be a burned valve and nothing more serious I put a
little oil in the cylinder and tried again hoping for the same 100 lbs.
Nope, it went up to about 150 lbs.
I figure this means broken/damaged rings, but are their other possibilities,
hopefully easier to fix?
When he's home for Thanksgiving I'll let him drive the Midget and hope it
doesn't damage the cylinder walls, but he was driving it as it currently is
for I don't know how long before he left for college, so a couple more days
shouldn't make much more difference. I plan to have my son's 79 B on the
road by Christmas so repair of the Midget will have to wait.
Any advise or words of wisdom would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Ken Waringa
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