The inevitable (I guess) finally occurred this morning. I was driving the
Spit Mk3 to work and I noticed a loss of power. Then I noticed lots of
whitish smoke coming from under the car. It smelled strongly of exhaust
and unburned gas. Then it became clear a cylinder wasn't firing.
When I got to work I lifted the bonnet and could see that the white smoke
was coming from the breather on the valve cover (with the Weber setup it's
just a straight pipe to under the car - sorry, environmentalists). It looks
like #4 isn't firing; I put in a nice new plug with no luck. I took off
the valve cover and all the valves were tight, but loosening them didn't
help. Looks like something serious!
It also looks like the smoke was coming up through the pushrod openings -
did I bust a ring? I haven't checked compression yet, I'll do that tonight.
I may go ahead and pull the head - can't hurt, I guess. But I'm worried
that it may be rings.
Any ideas, offhand?
Thanks,
Larry
lesnyd@monsanto.com
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