I did quite a bit of fiddling with Saskia yesterday and I think that I
have solved most of the MOT failure problems. I managed to borrow my
neighbour's ramps, so much easier than faffing with jacking the car up!
In the course of crawling round underneath the car I found that the
gearbox is coated in oil, so that's another leak to worry about and
remember to keep topped up! The good news is that my new(ish) diff does
not leak oil!
Anyway, I adjusted the handbrake up at the lever end, I didn't do
anything at the rear end, this seems to have solved the problem and the
handbrake is now much firmer. What is the testing criteria for the
handbrake?
I also changed the points and condenser, first time I have done this and
was surprisingly easy. Every day I am a firmer believer of 'if you stare
at something long enough you can almost always figure out how it works'.
Once this changed was done and I started her up again the difference in
tick-over was amazing! I think the pitted points were largely reponsible
for the mis-fire. I also got a colortune kit, so I am going to tune the
carbs tomorrow, btw is it engine oil that the dashpots should be filled
with and should they be filled up to where the neck of the body begins?
When balancing the carbs whereabouts should I listen for the hiss of air?
In a number of places I have heard 'listen to the air hiss with a tube',
but nowhere does it mention exactly where is the best place to listen and
pick out the hiss from the rest of the engine noise.
Before tuning the carbs I am going to check the timing. I have heard
that this can be done using just a bulb on a couple of crocodile clips,
presumably I could also use my multimeter? In the abscence of a timing
light, does this method work ok?
Hopefully once all that has been sorted she should pass on the emissions.
I moved the off side wiper blade up a couple of notches so that now there
is only roughly a 2mm area in the middle of the screen that is not swept,
they would have to be really picky to fail that!
Finally I replaced one of the manifold studs that had it's thread
stripped. Hopefully that should fix the 'petrol on the plugs' problem
when combined with a general tune-up. Thanks to whoever(from this list)
suggested checking the manifold studs, wouldn't have thought of that one!
Now I think that all I need to get sorted for Saskia to pass the MOT is
the steering gaitor (to be ordered next week) and the seats. For the
latter I think that I will tighten the front hinge bolts to reduce the
free play a little, and check that the floor bolts are properly
tightened. If they still fail her for that then I will argue with them a
lot, and the fact that she has got through the MOT for the last 24 years
and that because of the design of the seats (only secured at one corner
at the back) there is bound to a bit of 'looseness' and that this is in
teh orignal design. The seat frames are not badly worn, so that seeing
as this is original equipment then it should pass.
The bloke in the garage also said, when I went to pick Saskia up, that he
thought that she would fail on lots of things, but was surprised at how
few she failed on! That's a nice vote of confidence! I think I get a
free re-test at this garage (Nationwide Autocentres), so I will take
Saskia there, and if she fails again I will take her elsewhere in
Sheffield, anyone know of a good classic friendly MOT station?
thanks to everyone who responded to my original e-mail, all suggestions
were of great help!
cheers
John
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