500mile round trip, nearly home, now engine cutting out.

[Telford Mulisha]

Hi All

Got back from our Holidays a fews weeks back (Dubs@thecastle, Newquay, Higher Harlyn Bay) did a full service on the old girl before the off which included...

Checking the tappets and points
Replaced plugs and leads
Replaced fuel filter
Oil change
Set timing to 7.5 deg BTDC

Van ran great, no trouble except leaving the lights on all day whilst in Padstow

About 20 mile from home the engine felt/sounded off and when pulling up to traffic lights the revs dropped right down and nearly stalled.

Fast forward to this week and I decided to have a play.

Engine spec: 1641cc, twin Kadron 40 Carbs, 009 dizzy

Started up ok but would not tick over unless I kept the revs up,

Checked points, rotor arm and dizzy. All ok.
Removed plugs - Cyl. 1.black 2.good 3.black 4.black
Decided to remove plug leads 1 at a time with the engine running. 1,3,4, didn't seem to make much difference to the engine note but with the plug lead held on the dizzy, the spark was good. As soon as i removed the lead from Cyl 2 the engine stalls.

So there is a problem here I suspect not sure what though?

Back to the tick over problem, after a quick search on here I sprayed some GT-85 around the inlet manifolds looking for an air leak and found the revs picked up when spraying around the left bank inlet manifold for cyl. 3 & 4 so that looks like a manifold gasket maybe?
What do you think?

So I think I have 2 problems here.... What the hell's going on when pulling the leads off the dizzy, the sparkplugs are not the right colour and could the cylinder head have warped or do inlet manifold gaskets just let go.

Its worth mentioning that I drove straight through from Exeter services to Telford without stopping (184m), the engine didn't loose a drop of oil so I dont think the engine got too hot.

Bit of a waffle, but I wanted to get as much info down as possible to point me in some more directions.

Thanks guys for any feedback.

Nik

 

[rob]

I,d start with what you know is already a problem the leaking manifold joints ... You might be lucky and just find the nuts come loose.

 

[Anonymous]

warped head probley over heated are plugs very light grey on that side or all of them

 

[Telford Mulisha]

warped head probley over heated are plugs very light grey on that side or all of them

Both plugs on that side are black, does that mean it's running lean?

Already tried tightening the bolts on the manifold too.

Can anyone shed any light on why the engine only cuts out when pulling the lead off Cylinder No. 2 and not the others?

Cheers
Nik

 

[Anonymous]

try getting a compression test first it sounds like no 2 is the only one with good compression that's why it shows out more black plugs usually oil if black and sooty its running too rich

 

[the_troupster]

warped head probley over heated are plugs very light grey on that side or all of them

Both plugs on that side are black, does that mean it's running lean?

Already tried tightening the bolts on the manifold too.

Can anyone shed any light on why the engine only cuts out when pulling the lead off Cylinder No. 2 and not the others?

Cheers
Nik

Sounds like your not getting a good spark. Try swapping parts of your old ignition back in. Coil ok? Genny ok? What's your battery volts etc

Jim