1980 Austin Princess mild custom - 1951 Lanchester LD10

Nomad, I am so happy you said that! I shall leave it in situ and save myself a lot of faffing

Overall I'm feeling better about the whole thing. Cheers for sticking with me on this one everyone, hopefully I'll get an hour or two on it tomorrow.

Thinking about it - my "fix" won't cure the problem
It will get the distributor right but will also turn the camshaft away from where you want it (from TDC compression stroke to TDC on exhaust stroke)

Errm. Oops?

Update time! Ready for some frustration? I bet you are.

First job is to rotate the flywheel a full revolution to sort the timing out. It's just about impossible to photograph the valves, but this was the before shot (I think).


Check the distributor drive cog and find it's back to the same place it was. So that needs to come out and be turned around so the fat side is on the side it should be.


Made sure my timing mark was where it should be, like so.


Now, the valves are in a different position to previously, but again quite difficult to photograph.


Turned the distributor drive cog around so it's aligned properly. This was actually much easier than my first attempt so I guess I'm getting the knack of that.


I was asked which distributor is fitted, so here's the details for that.




Put the distributor back in and the rotor arm now points in exactly the opposite direction to what it did before giving the flywheel one full revolution. That's to be as expected, from what I understand people telling me.


I also put enough pipework in and an improvised bung for the vacuum/fuel thing under the carburettor. This now appears to be working properly as the sellotape cap was deformed inward on the pipe so must be creating at least some vacuum.


Distributor cap and leads refitted in the correct order, connected up to the coil, a little petrol down the carb, jump leads to the Rover because I'd forgotten to fully charge the Renault's battery and we tried again.


This is where the frustration is because I'm sure you'll want to hear I got it running allbeit badly and much rejoicing was had. What happened instead were a few weak pops in the exhaust rather than backfiring out the carburettor but not enough to get the car to actually run. A little more accelerant was applied to the carb and again we almost got it to fire but there is another problem somewhere. It does appear the timing is as it should be now, so that's something. Even with a remote fuel source we're getting fuel up to the carb but it's not getting through it, I'm guessing there's a blockage in there somewhere. There was some black gunge around some of these holes that were previously clean.


I plonked the air box back on because I was fed up of moving it every time I got in the car and decided to do this update to help me troubleshoot the potential problem rather than poking blindly at something I don't understand the cause of.


My suspicion is that there's still a blockage in the carburettor somewhere and the spark may be too weak to make use of what fuel is getting through or put directly into the carb. I will agree that it must now be something very simple to find, it's just going to take me a while to figure it out because of my lack of experience with this sort of fault. Please be patient with me.

On a happier note, the new dash clock arrived.

My routine :
Set the crank at TDC (using the flywheel marks - as you have been doing)
Check #1 cylinder is on compression stroke (both valved should have clearnace - if one is down then you're not on compression so give crank 1 full turn)
check distributor drive cog (as you are...)
fit distributor, see where tip of rotor arm is pointing - connect a pluglead from that distributor cap connection to no#1 cylinder.
find firning order in the manual
gently turn the engine and see which way the rotor arm turns - then connect the rest of the plugleads as per firing order.

pub!

Shout if any questions and we'll try to help

This ^^^

There's some debate about the distributor drive cog on another forum as to whether it should be perpendicular to the block or at 60 degrees as per my manual. The more I've thought about it tonight, the more the 60 degrees makes less sense because that means the rotor arm sits halfway between two of the plug leads rather than pointing at one when it's at TDC. So, if I rotate the distributor or the cog I should be able to rectify that, I imagine?

I also know fuel isn't getting through the carb but when we put petrol directly in it did nearly run. Perhaps if I'd put more fuel in it then it would have run properly, I dislike playing with petrol and such so I was perhaps a little frugal.

You're overthinking this.

The rotor arm needs to be in line with the lead for no 1 cylinder, not mid-point between two.

When the piston is at the top of its stroke on no1 cylinder, with both valves closed, that's the tdc you're looking for.

Wherever the distributor drive dog is sat doesn't really matter at all - put the distributor in and see where the distributor arm is now pointing. If you can twist the body of the distributor so that one of the leads lines up with the arm, and use that position for no 1 lead, and the rest in order, then the car will run. It might not be tidy, and the vac can might be in an awkward place, but it will run.

If you are (as I would be) determined to get things right, then when you are at TDC with the valves closed on No 1, drop the distributor in and the arm on and see where it's pointing. If it should be at 12 o'clock and it's at 3, then remove distributor, note the position of the drive dog, then remove and reinsert it so that it's rotated the necessary 90 degrees and re-fit the dizzy.

Check which way the distributor is turning too, so that you've got the leads on in the right order.

I've *just* finished work for today so I can catch up on forum threads.

Tomorrow, the plan is a simple one:
1 - run a wire/air through the pipework in the carb to make sure it's blockage free
2 - rotate the distributor 45 degrees so the rotor arm points at lead 1 when at TDC on the compression stroke
3 - put it all back together again
4 - turn the key and see what happens

I've had a *lot* of advice, opinions and info thrown at me. A lot of it is exasperation that I can't just Do The Thing, some of it is genuinely useful and some of it is opinion based conjecture that muddies what I'm doing and makes it even harder for me to Do The Thing.

Timing is something of a nemesis for me. It should be such a simple thing and yet I repeatedly manage to cock it up one way or another even with instructions. Anybody would think I couldn't count. If nothing else, it's a good reason for me to only ever own cars with 4 cylinders.

Having had exactly the same pain years ago with a 1725 Holbay rebuild, I echo the above. Good luck tomorrow!

Mind, being towed down the road with no bonnet on by the old feller's Volvo, spitting flames out of a gauze filter was quite spectacular. Just not very effective.