Practically Classics Forum

OK, long story short, a couple of years ago I built up a 1275 Marina engine with a stage 1 tune for my (at the time ) Morris Minor. It took a bit of fine tuning but in my ownership ran great.......

The car went to another owner (who attempts to run a car repair business) a year or so ago who buggered about with things / broke it and then parked it up. He then recently palmed it off on an unsuspecting customer as compensation for having dismantled his moggie in the name of a restoration, taken his money, but failed to do anything other than the dismantling.

So my old moggie has a new, loving home, the problem is it was palmed off as just needing the carb putting back on. My name and number being on receipts the new owner phoned for advice so I agreed to take a look.

Findings were, distributor hanging off, no vacuum advance pipe, carb to inlet manifold bolts stripped. So I set up the distributor statically using number one TDC as a rough guide to distributor position, fitted a vacuum pipe, renewed carb to manifold studs and got her running.

So complete with running car and fresh MOT the new owner is occasionally getting a little spitting back through the carb, a look at the plugs shows her maybe slightly lean but I left that for now, I altered the dizzy position clockwise until the car ran at the fastest smoothest idle then went anti clockwise just a touch.

A 5 mile test run seemed ok, no obvious pinking and plenty of power, but about 10 miles into his journey home she overheated a little, extra water saw her home and another phone call to me.

Can anyone throw any ideas in before I make another 20 mile trip to look at the old girl, at the moment I'm looking at backing off the dizzy a touch more and possibly richening the mixture just a flat on the nut. That may do it, but any other advice welcome as I'm really caught up in trying to put right some one elses disaster and could do with it out of the way without too many mercy missions to take a look.

Sorry for the long tale, just any thoughts appreciated before I go back out to the damn thing, also, I don't have a strobe light at present so I'm flying by wire.

Firstly well done to you for taking the time and trouble to help out with this. It's such acts of selfless kindness that make this weird hobby of ours so satisfying.

To the car; my feeling would be that the overheating may well be unrelated to the timing or mixture, especially if it doesn't otherwise "feel" wrong on the road. The mixture would have to be quite a way out to make it overheat and over advanced timing would see it pinking noticeably long before that would do this so I'd be looking at the possibility that the cooling system has a different problem such as a failing pressure cap or some sludge somewhere. The 4Lb cap that's correct for the Minor can safely be replaced by a 7Lb one.

^^^WHS^^^

Agree - lean mixture and timing off can make an engine run hot, but I've never known it to do so to the extent that it boils over. Especially on an A-series, and even more especially in a Minor, which are known for running pretty cool.

Check cap, thermostat, belt, sludge etc. as above.

Cheers!

Cheers John, I had wondered about the cooling system, though everything was renewed about two years ago including the radiator and cap though I know thats no guarantee of fitness now and I can't even rely on the rad cap being the same one.


I'll get a 7lb cap and try that as well, and I think given that he hadn't noticed any overheating before we altered the dizzy yesterday I may back it off just a little as well and see how it runs.

And thanks Luxo, was typing my last post when you posted so just seen it. Nice to get a couple of opinions at a time like this.

Right, just looking at getting hold of a rad cap locally rather than wait for one through the post.

Does anyone know if a 70's mini one will fit if I get the right psi, or is the reach likey to be different. I can't measure the depth of the morris radiator filler or the existing caps reach without a 20 mile trip first.........

Scrub the last request chaps sorted one.

Set the timing statically with a test light, put the mark on the front pulley in line with the correct timing mark on the timing chain cover, connect one terminal of the light to CB side on the coil and the other end to earth, switch on ignition, turn the distibutor till the light just comes on and light pressure pushing on the cam, opposite the points, should put the light out. This is the correct static timing position, I always used to do it this way when I were a lad, before we had these new fangled strobe lights




John Simpson

Cheers John, I'll give it a go if need be, I'd originally put number one to TDC using and then set the distributor by eye so as the contacts were just starting to open, then did it by ear with the engine running so your method is probably much better.
Anyway, All may actually now be well, I'd suggested just backing the dizzy off a little over the phone last night but the lad seemed a little unsure of doing it. Anyway, had a phone call at tea time and he'd decided to give it a try and now all seems well. Fingers crossed.

I'm going to get him to replace the rad cap with a 7 lb one aswell just to be safe.

I noticed you said it was a stage 1. does it have a boy racer air filter on it. had a mini once that just would not run properly with anything other than the original filter assembly.