Started stripping down in February to do the valve stem seals but ended up taking the heads off and doing the head and manifold gaskets. New lifters and even a new air injection non-return valve. It took quite a while to get fuel through to where it's needed but then she fired up with not too bad a clatter.
Idling smoothly at 500 rpm but still a ticking at the top and she kept just stopping. No misfire or change in idle speed, just as if I'd turned the key. That hasn't happened since I ran her back and forth on the drive a couple of times though.
Electrical problems all round. The display had missing pixels, tapped the computer button and it stuck in and it started misting up inside the dash display. She did warm up very quickly, I've never known heated air to come out of the vents so quickly so I turned off the heating to see if the HBV valve cleared any possible aitrlock. After a few minutes I turned the heater back on and the temp dropped by two degrees almost instantly so there is water in there. The outlet from the thermostat got hot and the radiator as well. I'd left the cap off the expansion bottle so that I could top it up if needed and when the cooling fan cut in water poured out of the bottle so I turned her off waited for it to settle and topped it up again. Presumably the auxillary pump on the radiator comes on with the fan and that still had air in the pipes which hit the hot water and expanded somewhat.
I put the cap on after topping up and ran her again, the fan came on and she gurgled and hoses were hard. Turned her off and topped up the tank, after carefully releasing the pressure, put the cap back on and this time when the fans came on no gurgling and no really high pressure in the pipes.
She's not been on the road for two and a half years and the petrol has been in there since then, even the half gallon we added was bought 10 months ago, so the cutting out may be that. I've got a new petrol filter to fit but don't want to put that on until I've got some fresh fuel.
The good news is no more thick cloud of blue smoke when you blip the throttle after she's been idling a while so the new stem seals are doing their job. I did get a bit of smoke when blipping it at first but she's been burning oil for years and since it stopped after ten minutes or so I put that down to oil in the exhaust or on the cats.
Even the pixels on the display came back as she warmed up. I'm extremely pleased and it wasn't too bad a job taken in stages. Hopefully I'll get her on the road again early next year.
Finally a public thank you to Geoff for his advice and tools loan, thanks Geoff.
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Topic: Well she runs (Read 1459 times)