I spent most of the weekend helping my friend attempt the last stages of
resuscitating a 69 roadster. This has been in his garage for 12 years,
and in the OOs garage for 14 before that, having been retired with the
3rd cracked head in its brief existence. After a few false starts (why is
the fan scraping the radiator bottom tank? Oh, because you left out the
radiator packing. Here they are...) it actually fired up early this
afternoon, and ran tolerably well after fiddling with the timing and
mixture. Now for the questions:
1. the manual's picture of the timing marks shows three points (TDC, 5B,
and 10B), directly on the bottom of the timing cover. This car only seems
to have one point (by feel), and it is barely visible behind the pulley
even with one's head beneath the front valance. Do these things get
knocked off or bent?
2. the emissions devices on this car seem to resemble the ones in the
Moss catalog labeled 1970-74, but without the canister -- there is no
flat, Smith's PCV device, as shown in the 1968-9 drawing. Is this because
it is a California car? The VIN (which I don't have right now, but recall
as 177xxx) seemed to be in the middle of the1969 model year when I
checked it before. Maybe when the dealer put a new head on it in 1970
they updated the emissions gear?
3. at first start up, with the choke on, running at 2500 rpm, the oil
pressure was only around 25psi. After warming up and getting the idle
down to 1100, the oil pressure was below 10psi. This was with a fresh,
full load of 10/40, and ambient temperature in the mid-60s. The temp
gauge was stable just below "N". The oil pressure seemed to vary a little
if you jiggled the sender wire connector, sometimes dropping to zero.
Would corrosion or poor contact cause high resistance and a lower reading
on this gauge, or is this motor "plumb wore out"? It has only 70K miles.
Or could the oil pressure relief valve be stuck open, or malfunctioning?
What is the wisdom of the list?
--
Max Heim
'66 MGB GHN3L76149
If you're near Mountain View, CA,
it's the red one with the silver bootlid.
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