growler_south (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
growler_south) wrote2004-10-07 09:13 am
growler_south) wrote2004-10-07 09:13 am
Mini Madness
Symptoms: low idle, idle speed ahd to be increased to stop it stalling, runs fine at speed but has an extreme 'hunt' at around 1500rpm. Yes, the Mini's being a pain. Nicholas was pretty much baffled by it- as was I for a while.
After a couple of beers at Kamo we disassembled the carburettor and cleaned it out. I love SU's- once the correct needle and spring have been chosen, theres no tuning to do. ever. Just keep them clean and topped up with damper oil, and keep an eye on that pesky butterfly spindle.
Anyway there wasnt a huge amount of crud in the carburettor (I was hoping for a sticking open float valve or loose butterfly but no such luck) but the car idled a little smoother- it still hunts at 1500rpm though! No apparent air leaks, running smooth as... too smoothly, in fact.
"Am I supposed to be using a valve seat additive?" Nicholas said.
Aha! Valve seat recession has closed the exhaust valve clearances up to the point that the valves arent sealing properly. Also explains why its running to quietly- no valve rattle. Now Nicholas needs to set his valve clearances and do a compression test- theres a high risk of a burnt valve.
Apart from that the Mini's in fine form- thrums along at 80mph and corners like a Mini should (any speed you like as long as you've got your foot flat to the floor...)
After diagnosing and marginally improving the Mini's lot, I popped round to the neighbours to see how their trip to India went- but found them pounding in consternation on their new Telecom DSL 'plug-and-play' setup. What Telecom, and all the installation guides failed to mention, was that they would have to log in to their modem and enter their username and password- something not even mentioned in the installation guide. Dont you hate it when you get to the end of a guide and it says "You're all done! enjoy surfing at DSL speeds" and its NOT WORKING...
Its all fixed now... It was an evening for fixing stuff.
After a couple of beers at Kamo we disassembled the carburettor and cleaned it out. I love SU's- once the correct needle and spring have been chosen, theres no tuning to do. ever. Just keep them clean and topped up with damper oil, and keep an eye on that pesky butterfly spindle.
Anyway there wasnt a huge amount of crud in the carburettor (I was hoping for a sticking open float valve or loose butterfly but no such luck) but the car idled a little smoother- it still hunts at 1500rpm though! No apparent air leaks, running smooth as... too smoothly, in fact.
"Am I supposed to be using a valve seat additive?" Nicholas said.
Aha! Valve seat recession has closed the exhaust valve clearances up to the point that the valves arent sealing properly. Also explains why its running to quietly- no valve rattle. Now Nicholas needs to set his valve clearances and do a compression test- theres a high risk of a burnt valve.
Apart from that the Mini's in fine form- thrums along at 80mph and corners like a Mini should (any speed you like as long as you've got your foot flat to the floor...)
After diagnosing and marginally improving the Mini's lot, I popped round to the neighbours to see how their trip to India went- but found them pounding in consternation on their new Telecom DSL 'plug-and-play' setup. What Telecom, and all the installation guides failed to mention, was that they would have to log in to their modem and enter their username and password- something not even mentioned in the installation guide. Dont you hate it when you get to the end of a guide and it says "You're all done! enjoy surfing at DSL speeds" and its NOT WORKING...
Its all fixed now... It was an evening for fixing stuff.
no subject
It's main problem was a tendency for the brakes to turn to shit just days after they'd been adjusted.
no subject
Minis with drum brakes need to be fitted with good-quality friction material. Most drum brakes are on the back where they dont do much work, so manufacturers fit shit linings. Cheap Mini shoes are fitted with the same shit linings, even on the front. The best bet is to have your shoes relined by PartMaster (0800 BRAKES), they will fit appropriately hard linings to the front.
Good drum brakes only need adjusting every 5000km- theres 10 notches on the adjuster, so you should get 50,000 km out of good linings. Which is about as good as disk brake pads...
no subject
You just keep lookin' better and better!
no subject
no subject
Oh, well that and that I know just enough to be dangerous. I never did manage to get both the carbs on my old Honda CB360 working at the same time. Had to take it to the dealer and admit defeat.
Setting up home networking, though, is just easy and fun. Partly because of those clever little traps.
no subject
Doesnt anyone use the command prompt any more? (Linux geeks aside...)
The command line is the spawn of Satan
We're already seeing stuff in MacOS X where the tech support answer is "now open terminal and type sudo rm blah blah blah". No non-geek should ever have to face that. It's a cheesy excuse for not fixing the software.
I used to be a unix geek, capable of four levels of quoting for rsh commands... then I rebelled.