Well, I got new tires for my '77 Spitfire today, put them on the car,
and took it for a slow cruise around the neighborhood. All was well,
except for a stutter when applying a lot of throttle -- but that's
been there for a while.
When I rolled to my first stop sign, I noticed some oil smoke, but
thought it was probably just burning off drippings after sitting for
two years.
It got worse with every stop, though, and when I got back into my
driveway I popped the hood and saw that oil had been coming out of
the dipstick tube (dipstick is still in).
I checked the valve adjustment on #4, and it's right at spec. My
breather system is a single hose running from valve cover to air
filter on a Weber DCOE, and the hose is not blocked.
So ... compression check. #4 cylinder is at 89 lbs., with the other
three ranging from 119 to 125 lbs. Ouch.
I'm thinking at least one broken ring on #4; this was the situation
with the first motor in this car -- oil spewing out of dipstick tube,
and it turned out that there were broken rings on two cylinders after
the DPO rebuilt it. I took the current motor out of a parts car, and
it ran reasonably well until now.
Anyone disagree with my assessment?
And now for the big question ... what to do about it? I guess I'm
inclined to do a full rebuild on this high mileage (100,000+) motor,
but if this is not strictly necessary, I'll consider other options.
(and what would a full rebuild cost?)
Dan
|