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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Bubbles and gaps

Bit of an update which will probably means more to anyone who was at the Middleton on Wednesday night.

Since engine rebuild I'd noticed water being lost from teh expansion tank overflow hose. At first I thought this was the level settling down but it got steadily worse so I decided it must have cylinder pressure getting in there. This was confirmed by a lot of air in the top of the radiator. So time to retighten the head gasket. I have a copper gasket (because I'm stupid and didn't listen and get a payne composite one). So I chalked them up for reference and then backed off each stud in turn, and sure enough they all went about 1/4 to 1/2 a turn further when re-torqued than they were before I undid them. Then I decided to check and adjust the valve clearances. That was Tuesday night. It got late so I didn't run the engine.

Wed I went to the local meet up and the car drove like a bag of spanners. Lots of twitchy misfires, a very deep exhaust note, and stalled at idle. Round the table I learnt that my 0.05mm valve clearance was far too small. Anyhow it got me home so yesterday I checked my Haynes manual and adjusted the clearances again. This time to 0.3mm (12 tho). It seems I'd read the "valve to stem clearance" rather than valve to rocker clearance, and therefore set them all far too tight.

And now it's all lovely and spritely again, and having driven it for 3 or 4 journeys of varying lengths I've not pumped any water out so it looks like that's fixed too!

Hurrah hurrah - bring on the weekend :o)

Thanks to the South Staffs guys for not laughing too much at my 0.05mm setting! I won't do it again - I promise. And no Bill, I won't visit motormania in Lichfield to buy anything, even if that does mean I only own a set of metric feeler guages.

Ant
Ant Allen

Why cant I have luck like that...Id surely crack the head at all 4 spots between the valve sets....Congratulations, thats great news to hear.

Prop
Prop

Good news, Ant! A healthy midget is a Very Good Thing.

Cheers,

-:G:-
Gryf Ketcherside

Chuffed for you Ant

so nice to hear good news here at last

So!

Where are you going to buy the "Imperial" feeler gauges then?

(I DO know why you would be a picture of reluctantness about "that place" but in fact the last time I bought owt there it was OK... Then again I did know exactly what I wanted. And so did they when I had explained)

Anyway, great news. Glad you got home OK

See you next month?
Bill sdgpm

This thread was discussed on 05/06/2009

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG Midget and Sprite Technical BBS is active now.