Heres the situation, any help would be greatly appreciated.
My wife was out driving the '73 Spitfire 1500, enjoying the sunshine when she
noticed the oil pressure dropped way down. It usually runs about 60 when cold
and around 45-60 (depending on revs) when warmed up. She was not sure exactly
how far down it went but said it was way lower than normal (I'm glad I put
that gauge in a couple months ago). Anyway, she pulled over right away and
checked the oil and found it to be off the stick (now I have a great excuse to
fix the leak). She added more oil and everything seemed OK, preassure was
back to normal. A little wile later it started to loose power, running real
rough, and would not climb a small hill. Afraid of causing further damage she
had the car towed home (there was a BIG hill ahead).
When I started to dig into it, it sounded like it was only running on 3
cylinders. I pulled a spark plug wires off one at a time to see if I could
locate the bad cylinder. Unfortunately pulling each plug off one at a time I
found that they all made about the same difference. I figured that when I got
to the bad one, it would not make it run any worse when pulled. I then
checked all the plugs and cleaned them, nothing too bad here. Wile on that
side of the car I reset the points gap to .015 as it seemed to have slipped to
around .012. None of this made any difference. The next thought was the
carb. When I pulled the air filter off I found that it was coated with oil,
quite a bit actually. I can't tell how much got down inside the carb, but I'm
sure some of it did.
I guess I have two questions for the list. First, I'm off to the store to get
some carb cleaner. What is the best way to clean up this mess especially if
its down inside? The only other car I have had with a carb ('68 Datsun 510)
seemed to like a good shot while the engine was running now and then. Is that
what is called for here? Or is there a "correct" way to do it? Please keep
in mind that I am not a carb expert. I know a little about the anatomy but
not much more.
Second, any idea what caused this oil to be here in the first place? Could it
have anything to do with the above situation or is this just a coincidence? I
don't want to go through the trouble of cleaning it up properly just to have
it happen again.
If it sounds like I'm barking up the wrong tree on this and anyone can come up
with other ideas about what the problem might be, please chime in.
Thanks as always,
David Gates
1973 Spitfire 1500
Hawaii
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