Everyone on this list should have a good Thanksgiving, because all the
bad luck seems to be with me. My '69 Spit ran great for about 1k miles,
then developed a very loud knocking sound and complete lack of power.
Fortunately, I had a '74 engine lying around, so I put that in. Lo and
behold, after about 1k miles, it started having the same problem. With
the first engine, I didn't open the engine up to find out what was wrong
(I was saving that pleasure for the winter), but I've done a little
investigation on the '74 engine. It idles fine, but when it gets up to
about 1500 rpm it starts knocking, very loud knocking. There is visible
smoke coming out of the push-rod journals for 1 cylinder (#4) when it is
knocking.
Here's the real question. I rebuilt the '74 engine myself, but had
the head worked on by a local machine shop. They were supposed to
convert it to a no-lead-head so I've been using unleaded gas. Looking
at my bills from them, they didn't charge me for the conversion (no new
valves/seats), just the machine work, so I'm not too confident that I
was using the right gas. What are the symptoms of using unleaded in a
leaded engine?
Mike Welch
God Bless America
-------
/// spitfires@autox.team.net mailing list
/// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive
|