Condense - or blown head gasket?

[b-havers]

Times take time...
Head was skimmed during the spring, then it lay in my garage far too long - for several reasons.

Was sent to a sort of Lotus Garage to be correctly shims'ed. Fitted new valves and guides etc, and I got the head back a couple of weeks ago.
With clever help from Dag Henning on this forum, the head was mated to the block last monday, and cams and chain correctly timed.

Now I'll spend a couple of nights fitting all the small parts, beforew hopefully trying to start the engine during the weekend

It has been a long journy (at least speaking of time), but I'll have the car ready by next week(......). Then it is off for the missing MOT (should have been last year...), and hopefully I can use it a few trips before winter sets in.

I'll put out a few pics, and let you know how the engine is after is has started

BTW;
Met Sean M from this forum, and a lot of other nice drivers, on the MSA Euroclassic run when in Oslo a small month ago. Nice cars and people, a few pics can be found at http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c377/ ... c%20-Oslo/


BTW-2
Today would have been the late John Lennon's 68th birthday....

[b-havers]

A short update, head, camcover, carbs, radiator etc is back in place, now I only need to re-find a few small hoses and clips, they are "somewhere" in the garage....

A picture of the progress so far...

[b-havers]

Tried to start the engine today.
It spun well, but wouldn't start

When checking, there were no spark on the plugs. Using a strobolight, I found there is power/electrisity in the HT lead from the coil to the distributor, but not on any of the sparkplug leads.

So, the only fault I can imagine is a defect condenser.
Guess an eventual misadjusted ignintion timing will give spark on the plugs, but at the wrong time, right?
So, no spark is down to a defect condenser...?

[oldokie]

Rotor?

[rgh0]

If your strobe light is picking up a spark in the high voltage lead from coil to distributor but not picking up a spark in the leads to the plugs there are 3 causes I would investigate assuming the wires and distributor are all assembled properly

1. Rotor open circuit or carbon contatct in centre of cap open circuit or not touching rotor so spark not getting from centre cap lead to rotor outer edge.
2. Rotor or distributor cap short circuit so high voltage spark from coil goes to earth in distributor
3. Ignition timing so far out the rotor not near the terminals when the spark fires. If your strobe works on the high voltage line out of the coil you should be able to see it fire twice a revolution one just before top dead centre and once just before bottom dead centre.

If the condenser is faulty you get no spark or very weak spark coming from the coil itsself. This is due to the arcing in the points causing a slow breakdown of the low voltage current flow in the coil when the points open. The spark is generated by the rapid stopping of the current flow in the primary winding in the coil, the collapse of the magnetic field it generates which then in turn generates a high voltage surge ( spark) in the secondary winding in the coil.

cheers
Rohan

[b-havers]

Another go today, resulted in a very weak spark on the plugs, guess not strong enough to ignite the petroldamp..

Any suggestion? Should I start renewing the coil??

[Elanintheforest]

Clean up the battery and engine earth points as well. It only require a bit of resistance to dull the spark whilst the starter takes all.

Mark

[b-havers]

Update:

Cleaned the earthpoint from the battery to chassis
Heated the spark plugs
Dropped e few drops of perol in th plug holes

And the engine started!!!

Didn't run too well, but some adjustments will cure that.

What I didn't like, thoug, was some 'metal sounds' from the head.... Could the shims-job been unsuccessful, after all????

[ppnelan]

Check the timing chain tensioner is not too loose or too tight.

Matthew