I found out today that the reason my carb was running rich was that
my gulp valve was incorrectly hooked up. So somewhere along the line
I had fixed the carb problem without knowing it. Now I'll never know!
The gulp valve I have is a Nissan model that is supposed to work
better than the original, but its connections are different from the
original. So somewhere in the translation I crossed the hoses twice
and got it wrong.
Now the bad news. My #2 cylinder is oil-fouling, the mechanic suspects
a broken ring (infant ring failure? The engine has only run for 100 miles!).
Looks like I'll have to replace one piston and its rings (the others should
be ok since they are all new).
The engine is still under BPD's warranty (surprise!). I talked to them
and they were nice about taking care of it. But I really don't want to
pull the engine and ship it to them and then re-install it.
They've offered to send me the parts if I want to do it myself also. If I
do this I'll probably send them the head so they can check the valves.
They're concern is that a leak down a valve guide might be responsible for
the fouling.
My question is this: is fixing one cylinder easy enough to warrant doing
it myself or would I be better off pulling the engine again and shipping
it back? (Let's not consider paying $500 for a local shop to fix the
cylinder).
>From what I know, doing the work involves the following:
drain the fluids, remove the oil pan (a few bolts), remove the head
(not much harder), unbolt the piston (easy), remove and replace the
rings (I don't know about this part), bolt a new piston in, install the
head (new head gasket), oil pan (new gasket), and valve cover (new
gasket).
Since it's a recent rebuild, nothing should be rusted in place yet so
most parts should come apart easily. The cylinder should be surfaced
from the rebuild so I won't have any machining to do.
What would you do?
-Dan "I'll never get to drive this car" Dasaro
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