Bad day all round

Posted by: Dale Bowman

Sooo, picked the car up from the workshop and went for a drive to get some miles on before Le Mans. On my return part of the journey (had covered about 40 miles), the car started missing slightly ... by the time I got within 1 - 2 miles from home it was barely drivable. Missing on a number of cylinders, no tick-over (that's fun when coming to a junction  😉 ), really nasty ticking noise (similar to the old tappet sound but much worse), and a slight screech when pulling away or starting from a stall. Checked the usual easy items, plug leads, plugs and all look ok.

Also a smaller problem .... sorry Dave forgot to mention this one .... the speedo has stopped working. Got a nice smell of burning plastic when it did ???? not sure what that could be.

I've been onto Dave and he's looking into a way to diagnose / fix the problem. So hopefully wont take to long to sort out. Just a bit conscious that Le Mans is only two month (ish) away & at the moment don't really have the confidence to do the trip in the Cobra (or have enough miles on it for such a long trip). May feel different in a few days after the initial depression has passed  😀 .... could go in the Merc of course  😉 

Hi, Bad luck. We are going in the Porsche on account of comfort for Mrs Large.

David

Sorry to hear such bad luck Dale, hope it's all sorted soon.

Looks like we have reached 427 posts 😎 

Posted by: David Large

Posted by: Dale Bowman

Sooo, picked the car up from the workshop and went for a drive to get some miles on before Le Mans. On my return part of the journey (had covered about 40 miles), the car started missing slightly ... by the time I got within 1 - 2 miles from home it was barely drivable. Missing on a number of cylinders, no tick-over (that's fun when coming to a junction  😉 ), really nasty ticking noise (similar to the old tappet sound but much worse), and a slight screech when pulling away or starting from a stall. Checked the usual easy items, plug leads, plugs and all look ok.

Also a smaller problem .... sorry Dave forgot to mention this one .... the speedo has stopped working. Got a nice smell of burning plastic when it did ???? not sure what that could be.

I've been onto Dave and he's looking into a way to diagnose / fix the problem. So hopefully wont take to long to sort out. Just a bit conscious that Le Mans is only two month (ish) away & at the moment don't really have the confidence to do the trip in the Cobra (or have enough miles on it for such a long trip). May feel different in a few days after the initial depression has passed  😀 .... could go in the Merc of course  😉 

Hi, Bad luck. We are going in the Porsche on account of comfort for Mrs Large.

 

David

WHAT! 😳

Two months is plenty of time to identify and fix the issue Dale.

Paul

Posted by: Paul Blore

Two months is plenty of time to identify and fix the issue Dale.

Paul

Yes I do hope so ... and leave time to get some miles on (cant believe it but even Claire said she'd be disappointed not to be going in the Cobra ... don't know where that came from).

 Took the valve covers off this morning to check the valve train and support towers but they all look great and when turning over all open & close as they should. I'm just hoping it's a problem with the MSD unit. I was thinking / hoping that the bad misfire, tapping & screech could be coming from the distributor and its gearing.

In any case Dave is going to organise his transport guy to come and pick up and take back to his place.

How's the arm coming along? 

I hope this is not the problem, but we (Thunder Road Car's) have had a lot of problems with dizzy drive gear's wearing out very quickly, this makes the timing go haywire, as the dizzy drives the oil pump there is a lot of load on the drive gear as well which dosn't help. We know of failures in less than 500 miles.

Another case for using thinner oil.

Although I wouldn’t have thought that was the issue because SA should be well aware of which drive gears to use.

Do you have an MSD Pro-Billet distributor Dale? Is so, I think these come with the steel (?) drive gear as standard rather than the bronze gear.

Posted by: Dale Bowman

Posted by: Paul Blore

Two months is plenty of time to identify and fix the issue Dale.

Paul

Yes I do hope so ... and leave time to get some miles on (cant believe it but even Claire said she'd be disappointed not to be going in the Cobra ... don't know where that came from).

 Took the valve covers off this morning to check the valve train and support towers but they all look great and when turning over all open & close as they should. I'm just hoping it's a problem with the MSD unit. I was thinking / hoping that the bad misfire, tapping & screech could be coming from the distributor and its gearing.

In any case Dave is going to organise his transport guy to come and pick up and take back to his place.

How's the arm coming along? 

The screech sounds odd. It could be completely unrelated to the misfire of course.

It’s doing okay thank you. I’m still getting quite a lot of nerve pain, but that’s probably to be expected given what’s been done. I’m hoping to start driving again in another week and I’ll then have 2 weeks to get match fit for the road trip.

Posted by: Dale Bowman

Posted by: Paul Blore

Two months is plenty of time to identify and fix the issue Dale.

Paul

Yes I do hope so ... and leave time to get some miles on (cant believe it but even Claire said she'd be disappointed not to be going in the Cobra ... don't know where that came from).

 Took the valve covers off this morning to check the valve train and support towers but they all look great and when turning over all open & close as they should. I'm just hoping it's a problem with the MSD unit. I was thinking / hoping that the bad misfire, tapping & screech could be coming from the distributor and its gearing.

In any case Dave is going to organise his transport guy to come and pick up and take back to his place.

How's the arm coming along? 

The screech sounds odd. It could be completely unrelated to the misfire of course.

It’s doing okay thank you. I’m still getting quite a lot of nerve pain, but that’s probably to be expected given what’s been done. I’m hoping to start driving again in another week and I’ll then have 2 weeks to get match fit for the road trip.

Posted by: Paul Blore

Posted by: David Large

Posted by: Dale Bowman

Sooo, picked the car up from the workshop and went for a drive to get some miles on before Le Mans. On my return part of the journey (had covered about 40 miles), the car started missing slightly ... by the time I got within 1 - 2 miles from home it was barely drivable. Missing on a number of cylinders, no tick-over (that's fun when coming to a junction  😉 ), really nasty ticking noise (similar to the old tappet sound but much worse), and a slight screech when pulling away or starting from a stall. Checked the usual easy items, plug leads, plugs and all look ok.

Also a smaller problem .... sorry Dave forgot to mention this one .... the speedo has stopped working. Got a nice smell of burning plastic when it did ???? not sure what that could be.

I've been onto Dave and he's looking into a way to diagnose / fix the problem. So hopefully wont take to long to sort out. Just a bit conscious that Le Mans is only two month (ish) away & at the moment don't really have the confidence to do the trip in the Cobra (or have enough miles on it for such a long trip). May feel different in a few days after the initial depression has passed  😀 .... could go in the Merc of course  😉 

Hi, Bad luck. We are going in the Porsche on account of comfort for Mrs Large.

 

David

WHAT! 😳

We are going in the Porsche all as discussed! 😀 

Posted by: David Large

Posted by: Paul Blore

Posted by: David Large

Posted by: Dale Bowman

Sooo, picked the car up from the workshop and went for a drive to get some miles on before Le Mans. On my return part of the journey (had covered about 40 miles), the car started missing slightly ... by the time I got within 1 - 2 miles from home it was barely drivable. Missing on a number of cylinders, no tick-over (that's fun when coming to a junction  😉 ), really nasty ticking noise (similar to the old tappet sound but much worse), and a slight screech when pulling away or starting from a stall. Checked the usual easy items, plug leads, plugs and all look ok.

Also a smaller problem .... sorry Dave forgot to mention this one .... the speedo has stopped working. Got a nice smell of burning plastic when it did ???? not sure what that could be.

I've been onto Dave and he's looking into a way to diagnose / fix the problem. So hopefully wont take to long to sort out. Just a bit conscious that Le Mans is only two month (ish) away & at the moment don't really have the confidence to do the trip in the Cobra (or have enough miles on it for such a long trip). May feel different in a few days after the initial depression has passed  😀 .... could go in the Merc of course  😉 

Hi, Bad luck. We are going in the Porsche on account of comfort for Mrs Large.

 

David

WHAT! 😳

We are going in the Porsche all as discussed! 😀 

We are talking about Le Mans aren't we?

Posted by: Barry Jones

I hope this is not the problem, but we (Thunder Road Car's) have had a lot of problems with dizzy drive gear's wearing out very quickly, this makes the timing go haywire, as the dizzy drives the oil pump there is a lot of load on the drive gear as well which dosn't help. We know of failures in less than 500 miles.

With being my first 'proper' drive out I was keeping a special eye on all the gauges. All pressures and temps behaved very well, even when the problem occurred. Water temp never got above 90, oil pressure never dropped below 60. Think the oil is slightly overcooled as it never rose above 60.

Posted by: Paul Blore

Another case for using thinner oil.

Although I wouldn’t have thought that was the issue because SA should be well aware of which drive gears to use.

Do you have an MSD Pro-Billet distributor Dale? Is so, I think these come with the steel (?) drive gear as standard rather than the bronze gear.

It states this on my build sheet ... MSD PRO BILLET ELECTRONIC #8594 - BRONZE GEAR. Which I always thought was odd because my distributor looks nothing like the picture of the 8594.