John Metzger writes:
>1275 1970 Midget....
>
>Car runs like crap with SU's..rebuild SU's many times...car still runs like
>crap...decide to put weber on car...car runs great cept now we have an oil
>leak...pull engine...replace rear end cover gasket...also replace clutch while
>engine is out...put engine back in ....1 man job all the way...start up
>car..oil
>still leaks....
I hate it when this happens.
Assuming that the person that rebuilt the SU's had any idea of what they were
doing, it should have been fairly obvious that the problem was *not* the
carbs. One reuild is enough. Usually, it's a bad mainfold gasket, a bad gulp
valve, or a plugged charcoal canister. When the weber gets hacked into the
system (please tell me it's a DCOE, and not one of those one-size-fits-all DGV
kits), the manifold gasket gets changed, the gulp valve hits the trash can, and
the charcoal canister is left unconnected. Now the car sorta runs, so the Weber
must have cured everything. Bad SU's!! BAH!
Of course, all too often when this conversion is done, all of the engine
breathers are plugged off. (they used to go to the carbs). This leads to an
extreme case of positive crankcase pressure.
Find the main engine breather. It will either be on the timing cover, or
bottom-left-front of the block. Take the hose/plug/whatever off of it. Now
run the engine and verify that there is a small amount of continuous blowby
coming out of the breather, and that the oil leakage has stopped. If there is
major blowby at idle, you have an engine problem. If none, the breather itself
is blocked up.
John, although the the tone of this message indicates otherwise, I'm not
yelling at you. I'm just venting frustration at some things that have always
irked me working with British cars and "typical" owners:
Every wiring fault, no matter how high-quality wirenuts and bandaids used in
the last patch, are blamed on poor old Joe Lucas.
MGB's and Midgets that fall flat one their face every time the throttle is
banged open "cause those damn SU's always went out, so I put on this Weber".
and MGB's that fuel starve after five seconds at wide open because the original
pump got trashed and one of them "hi-tech" Fawcett pumps got put in.
Randy
randy@taylor(.UUCP)
P.S. Next person to crack a Lucas or SU joke ought to spend some time owning
a '70 Alfa Spyder; twin DCOE's and Marelli electrics. There's a reason
old Alfa's have less miles on them than old MGB's. :>
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