To all,
I just had one heck of a week with my '73B. It includes a story that few will
have experienced. Keep in mind this is a car that is my everyday driver and
that has been extraordinarily reliable over the 12 years I have had it.
I just finished putting in a new clutch last weekend. Of course, this includes
pulling the engine and transmission. With everything just about done, I drove
it to a local $1 car wash to clean the engine bay. I had cleaned the engine
and transmission when I had them out, but the engine bay was still dirty.
Well, don't you know, I got the distributor wet and it started to miss badly.
Not unusual, but when I pulled the cap and dried it off, the missing
continued. I limped home a bit puzzled.
I also found the center carbon on the Mallory distributor cap worn away, so I
had to order a new one (that cap had only been on about a year). The new cap
didn't correct the missing. #3 wasn't firing at all, even though it had spark,
fuel and valve action. I finally put the compression gauge on and found no
compression at all, ZERO on # 3.
Well, it had been eleven years since I had a valve job and I drive the car
everyday day, so I pulled the head and took it down to the machine shop the
next morning. I got a call from them a couple of hours later asking "if I had
just bought the head from someone" because it wasn't all there.
I went to the shop and looked at the head. An exhaust valve seat that was
installed in 1987 was gone. We finally figured out that the seat came loose
and fell out and was dashed to bits by the piston. This was confirmed by an
interesting patina on the top of the #3 piston. I'm sure what ever was left is
still in my muffler. For your information, exhaust valve seats for a General
Motors 260 V-6 were used to replace the missing one and do the other three
(regression had taken it's toll). Saved about $1 each and they were readily
available in Dallas.
My MG angel must have been working overtime for those few incredible seconds
all of this was taking place as the cylinder walls were fine and no holes or
deep gouges in the pistons. Complements to A. E. Hepolite as well for their
fine, durable pistons, as well. They were installed in 1991 when I did the
rest of the overhaul started with that valve job in 1987.
I reassembled the engine and have been driving it for two days now. It would
seem that this may be the end of the tale. I certainly hope so.
By the way, I was needing to get the car inspected TODAY when I discovered I
needed a throttle cable. In this emergency, I used one from the K-Mart bicycle
department (hand brake cable, $2 vs. $8 + shipping from VB). Seems to be a
good fix. We'll see how long it lasts.
During the inspection, we discovered the brake lights had quit working. A new
brake light switch installed about four months ago failed (I'll have to see if
VB will give credit). Again, in order to get the inspection done, I got
creative and found a very similar switch (Borg Warner #S-653) for a Chrysler
truck fits quite well at one-third the cost ($8 vs. $28 + shipping from VB) of
the "proper" switch from VB. You will, however, have to run a 10.0 mm X 1.25
mm tap into the fitting on the peddle box cover to mount the switch.
Hope this story is interesting and useful to all.
R. Johnson - Dallas
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