DFD702K.

Reminds me of a Mini Van I was "given" by father in law - who then decided he wanted a £400 hedge cutter as a thank you....van was as good as gold, never let him down etc.
Two subframes later, extensive welding, respray, retrim, replacement engine and gearbox, new chrome work etc etc it was good as gold.
When he saw it after all the work he made some comment about how he knew it'd come up nice with a good clean   bless him.
Sold it for £2.5 k and thought I'd done well...worth a lot more now ...
"Invested" proceeds in an Austin 3 Litre which was good as gold...ish - apart from 2 steering racks, exhaust, wheel bearings etc etc.
Cheers
A

landcrabforum.co.uk/thread/1241/oil-return-spring-urgent-important

Every one with the 1.8/1.8S engines should read this. Was first identified in an MGB motor but applies to the crabs, diesel B series, and A series.

A new upgrade.

I noticed that moving the intake from by the exhaust to in the airstream abaft the rocker cover improved performance (bar the need to richen the mixture, which is being done tomorrow).
So I wondered whether installing a ram air intake/helmholtz resonator would provide any improvements on the short intake trumpet of the filter can.
As far as I can tell the answer is a pretty resounding yes. Between 0-60mph the car is definitely more lively - to the extent I've had to hit the brakes a couple of times because it's been going a little faster than I thought.
The long intake does quiet the engine down some especially at higher speeds.
This will work on the Wolseley 18/85 II and possibly the 6 but since I've not seen one in the flesh I don't know.
The Morris & Austin cars will require a different method.

Parts required:

2 x SU HS6 intake bellmouths or short intake trumpets
2 x 8mm/9mm nuts and bolts.
1 x 75cm long 50mm internal diameter spring steel supported plastic pipe (temperature resistant +90c)
Automotive grade double sided tape
Sandpaper (various grades).

This assumes you still have the oem airbox fitted.

Take one of the bellmouths and sand the inside of same until as smooth as possible. This will be the intake side. Take the other and if you have time do the same.
Take the second bellmouth and tape around the outside diameter of the port - do *not* remove the protective plastic on the outside at this point.
Run the pipe from the tip of the trumpet down to the left by the battery - across the front of the motor behind the shield and work out the required length. The pipe can be carefully twisted onto the trumpet (like a nut onto a bolt) when it's fitted.
At one end fit the taped bellmouth into the pipe with the ends of the tape away from the cut end of the wire (it'll make sense when you do it) - and the pull the protection tape off as you secure it.
*leave it to cure/set for a while.*
Go back to the car and connect the air box end to the intake trumpet (using the screw on method) and route the pipe across to the lhs of the grille around the back of the shield, via the battery side engine mounting space.
Take the bolts and feed them through the taped bellmouths outer mount holes and out through the relevant spaces in the grille.
Feed the polished bellmouth onto the bolts and add the nuts - tightening (gently) so the two bellmouths clamp the uprights of the grille securely.

What you now have is a long branch intake manifold - and Helmholtz resonator - using the same idea as modern cars and the Chrysler Sonoramic Commando engine (although in that case the set up is a little different).
The intake will be ~36" long and the pressure waves will be set up by the ram air effect (in the SC it was the bounce off the valves/carb butterflies).

As best as I can find out - the effects of a 36" intake should be between 2400-3000rpm - or the lower middle rpm. This makes sense because this seems to correspond to the effect it has on a short test drive - 35-60mph in top. The rule is that a longer intake gives an effect at lower rpm and vice versa.

I'll know more when the garage have sorted the weak acceleration mixture issue (90% sure this is because it was previously tuned with a badly blocked air filter).

As I understand the theory in this case I'm tuning the intake from the port on the radiator grille to the butterfly on the carburettor. In the case of an EFI car it's tuned from the throttle plate to the back of the valve (in the case of the Hyundai Alpha engine therefore there are two levels of resonator - an odd snail shell curve intake manifold (tuned from the valves to the throttle plate) and a long intake tract tuned (badly) from the intake to the plate - which I would think gives a hybrid of the two (like the later 30/15 split Sonoramic intakes).
With the siamesed ports because they're upstream of the carb butterfly I don't know the effect they'd have here - if any - but they'd definitely have an effect on the EFI Mini for example...
The gent at the garage has richened the mix by "two turns" - whether that means two flats or two whole turns I don't know but I'd suspect the former, he's probably able to tune these by ear (being as there's two MGB, an Audax Alpine & a Vauxhall Viva in the place but it was actually running lean at idle on choke this morning! And he managed to find the oil relief valve - it'd migrated - but it's *horrible* to get at, and the valve cup has a habit of sticking..

Thanks for the article I'll have a look.

The vacuum block is inline with the motor block with the output pointing to the right looking towards the back of the car. Isn't it possible to tune the points etc independently of the dizzy position?
If it was that far out of tune I'd be amazed if it even started let alone ran well enough to average 25mpg for relatively short journeys. But I'm nowhere near an expert on these things.
I've already looked at the info on the siamesed ports and it explains perfectly the Wolseleys behaviour on choked idle yesterday - it sounded like it was firing perfectly on two and barely at all on the other two - which makes perfect sense if one port of the pair is getting 63% of the mixture and the other gets the rest.
Will have to see what happens I guess but they've managed to get the oil relief valve replaced.

The points should be set to 0.015" gap before doing any further checks. If you widen the gap it advances the timing and may lead to misfiring. A closed up gap retards the ignition and will again eventually lead to a misfire.

I would strongly advise that you check the ignition timing as this is straight forward. The position of your distributor looks wrong. If you have a timing light that is preferable. The MOD cars often used lower compression engines so if you can read and post the engine number we can probably give you a static and stroboscopic reading. Without a timing light you can check when the points open with a meter or even a 12v bulb in series with the ignition coil and check the timing marks. They may be on top of the timing cover or underneath and there is a notch in the crankshaft pulley to show the alignment. Best thing is to report back here first - there have been instances where an early pulley intended for the bottom timing indicator has been fitted to a later engine with the top timing indicator and vice versa. As a quick guide irrespective of the engine you should have a static timing of between 12degrees BTDC( HC) and 17 degrees BTDC (LC engine). These engines can run with way out ignition timing, but not well or safely.

The fuelling difference on a standard cam between the inner and outer cylinders at idle isn't anything like 63/37% it's much better matched and so shouldn't be causing a 2 cylinder misfire.

Good luck

David

If you read the crab road tests one of the things many mentioned was the almost total lack of brake fade even after a number of crash tests from 60mh and,yes, the normal steel wheels are solid.

While I agree with the philosophy if it ain't broke....I also believe in checking things that people point out to me as possibly being wrong before it does break!

I would be interested to see a link to how to set to a different firing order 1,3,2,4 I thought that could only be done by a complete change on the crankshaft and camshaft design. The MPI Mini simply compensated the fuelling - unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any details published of the level of compensation needed at different rpm and load settings and the recommendation for modifying a Mini MPI is to change back to SU carbs!

I am curious about the Splitfire ignition you have fitted, I believe this was the one that combined CDI and switched inductance charge, but can't seem to find any details of the distributor models anywhere nowadays, only direct ignition, and reference to Splifire spark plugs.

Maybe your lizard was spooked by the vet, some animals seem to behave strangely even on the way to the surgery.

David