Bruise, the 1971 MGB GT hasn't been playing nicely recently. When moderately warm it would idle, but it was lumpy and erratic. Once fully warmed up it would die as soon as my foot came off the throttle. This meant restarting at just about every junction and was a right royal pain in the rear.
I'd gone through the ignition and rechecked the carbs to no avail. I was about to start tearing my hair out when I noticed a slight blow at the head gasket joint just between 2 & 3 cylinders. Saturday saw me changing the head gasket and it was the cause of the problem as the car ran as well as ever but (there's always a but) not for long.
A misfire came into the mix. Loss of power and rough running weren't what I wanted. As I'd had the carbs off, this was my starting point. I checked everything without success.
Work got in the way a little and I had a couple of days not being able to drive as I would have liked to. Having found nothing amiss with the carbs, I decided to try a new set of plugs. I'd obviously got the mixture right as the plugs were a nice tan colour, but No.4 was wet. Hmm, that's not firing. New plugs didn't make any difference. I had a spare set of plug leads at work so this morning I set to to change them. I pulled No.4 lead off the plug and it came off the distributor cap as well. I don't think it was supposed to do that.
Once properly reconnected all was well again and the car ran fine. I don't know how long that lead had been loose in the cap but I don't think it was the cause of my original problem.
It must have been my lucky week, two problems for the price of one.
I'd gone through the ignition and rechecked the carbs to no avail. I was about to start tearing my hair out when I noticed a slight blow at the head gasket joint just between 2 & 3 cylinders. Saturday saw me changing the head gasket and it was the cause of the problem as the car ran as well as ever but (there's always a but) not for long.
A misfire came into the mix. Loss of power and rough running weren't what I wanted. As I'd had the carbs off, this was my starting point. I checked everything without success.
Work got in the way a little and I had a couple of days not being able to drive as I would have liked to. Having found nothing amiss with the carbs, I decided to try a new set of plugs. I'd obviously got the mixture right as the plugs were a nice tan colour, but No.4 was wet. Hmm, that's not firing. New plugs didn't make any difference. I had a spare set of plug leads at work so this morning I set to to change them. I pulled No.4 lead off the plug and it came off the distributor cap as well. I don't think it was supposed to do that.
Once properly reconnected all was well again and the car ran fine. I don't know how long that lead had been loose in the cap but I don't think it was the cause of my original problem.
It must have been my lucky week, two problems for the price of one.
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