[Spridgets] Troubleshooting..

Bud Osbourne abcoz at hky.com
Sun Mar 17 10:32:37 MDT 2013


Had a similar problem, last fall, with the MGB I was putting together for my
wife.  To make a very long story short, it was nothing more than fuel
starvation, caused by a partial blockage of the hard line that runs under
the car.  Before you do anything radical, like pulling the head, make damn
sure you don't have a fuel supply issue.  Look at the simple, inexpensive
items first, before working your way up the "food chain" in order of expense
and difficulty/complication.
We all have a tendency to out-smart ourselves, on occasion, when trying to
diagnose problems on these cars and it's a very easy trap to fall into.
Some guys never escape it.

Bud Osbourne

-----Original Message-----
From: spridgets-bounces at autox.team.net
[mailto:spridgets-bounces at autox.team.net] On Behalf Of Dean Hedin
Sent: Sunday, March 17, 2013 10:45 AM
To: 'spridgets'
Subject: [Spridgets] Troubleshooting..

Last year before I buttoned up the Sprite for winter I took it for a usual
weekly ride.

About 4 miles from home I was waiting to get around a tree service crew.
As I passed them the car began to stumble an run really rough.  It felt like
it was running on two cyclinders along with a pinging type of sound.

I limped home and parked the car for winter.  I figured that perhaps
something was wrong with my home brewed MSD box.  I would deal with it in
the Spring.

So today I'm out troubleshooting the thing.  I started by making a little
harness that allows me to swap out the MSD box.  I figured this is a good
thing to have anyway.
But the MSD box
was not the issue.  In fact spark is not the issue. Plenty of spark on every
cylinder even without the msd box.

It seemed like at idle, I could pull cylinders 1 & 2 spark plug boots and
not see an appreciable drop in rpms. So I thought maybe something was wrong
with the front SU carb.

I opened and drained it's float and removed the bell.  I then took canned
air and reverse blew through the main jet to make sure the tube was not
clogged.  

That was'nt it.

Now I'm worried, so I pull the valve cover to make sure none of the rocker
adjuster had'nt worked loose.  No problem there...

So now I'm thinking either valves or head gasket.  But the failure was
sudden.  Has to be head gasket.

I Googled "symptoms of blown head gasket between cylinders" and I find
this...
http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&threa
d=102462

Which has a link to this video on youtube...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k1zNcXUq834

Which is almost EXACTLY what my Sprite sounds like right now.

Guess I need to finish up that 12G295 head in a hurry. Ordered all the bits.
Need to get this done
before the 55th shindig...


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