Practically Classics Forum

It may be worth doing another compression check as with a crappy earth it may not have been turning over quick enough to give you a true reading.

Good thinking, will recheck it again on Monday

Reminds me of one of the faults my son had with his '79 Mini . . . .

With no experience of car repairs, he had a full rebuild of the front end, floor repairs and full respray. Couldn't afford any work on engine so it was just serviced and replaced. I drove it home and never having driven an old car before thought it was a bit rough and didn't feel stable - son just drove it round the block and came straight back to say it felt like there was wheel loose - correct - no split pin in front nearside castle nut

Suspension never seemed right so it went back to have Hi-Lo adjustables fitted but the rubber cones still didn't give at all and so when it went back to the same garage for MOT they said they had adjusted the suspension. Some time later the rubber did settle and he wanted to alter the ride height but couldn't - the butchers had used an angle grinder to cut the adjuster down so far that the weight on the one or two threads left meant the threads stripped and it couldn't be altered - all removed and he went back to the standard 'trumpet' set up.

Now we get to the point of the story - battery wasn't charging and there were all sorts of intermitant electrical faults which we thought must have been an earthing problem so I suggested checking the earth strap from the engine to the bodywork - my lad searched all over and couldn't find one. Quick fix to put one on and no electrical faults at all after that.

So they may have been good at bodywork but they were crap at the mechanical side of things with three separate faults - and this is from a well known Mini restorer who has had cars featured in magazines . . . . . . . . . .

Mike

Story I heard years ago, when Rover SD1s were new.

Fella bought one new, and after 3 months the diff failed, so it got another one under warranty. Failed again after another 3 months, so another warranty claim. Then guess what? 3 months later, sure enough, a grumbling diff with shot bearings & gears.

For all BL's faults at the time, constantly failing diffs weren't one of them, so a thorough investigation was called for. After weeks of searching, they finally noticed that the engine earth strap had been missed off at the factory, so every time the owner started the car it found an earth path through the diff, and effectively welded up the gears. A few weeks of this and the gears were shot...

Fitted the earth strap properly and it was fine.

I've heard of cars that welded the choke or accelerator cables solid for the same reason.

Hey ho!

Ian wrote:.....Now to get the valve timing checked

That earth braid is supposed to be attached to where the engine mount on its side is bolted to the block, it's entirely possible that the same genius who screwed it to the wrong place (chain cover by any chance?) didn't fit the chains correctly. BUT.... Even I would tend to leave it alone now that you fixed the issue with it that caused you to aks the question in the first place.
Then something else occurred to me; to get the compressions uniformly low on both banks is unlikely as that would require the error to have happened at the crank sprocket end, what are the chances of both upper runs being out by the same amount? Yeah, only that much.
I've only had two compression testers since 1979, the first one died when its end fitting was forced down a Sprint plug tube and never sealed correctly after that. So I bought another, as you do, but also replaced the damaged nose piece on the first gauge with a flexible one that had a thread on the end. At that point, gauge number one was some 24 years old, both gauges are still working now and I've get into the habit of using both. Nobody I've known from the trade has ever had a compression tester fail other than when the push-in type has had a damaged rubber tip, the aneroid coil tends not to fail but maybe this thread found someone who actually managed to break one? Tip damage is easy to spot so.

I'm human.

My brother's 1500 Midget was suffering from a sticky throttle and that also turned out to be an earth issue. The engine earth strap had failed and all the current passing through the starter motor was earthing back to the body via the throttle cable - causing the inner and outer to arc/spot weld themselves together. it still ran nicely, though.

New earth strap and throttle cable and all was well again.