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Re: Stumbling

To: "Neil Cotty" <neilc@apphosting.com>, "MG list" <mgs@autox.team.net>
Subject: Re: Stumbling
From: Barney Gaylord <barneymg@ntsource.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 18:07:29
At 10:27 AM 11/20/99 +1100, Neil Cotty wrote:
>....
>Do you have any specific solutions you can recommend before I reassemble
my cyl head that might help this prob go away .... ?.

YES!  You will find that most head gaskets have larger apperatures than the
size of the openings they are sealing, so the edges of the castings are
generally exposed inside the combustion chamber.  Take a hand grinder and
round off all the sharp edges in the combustion chamber to eliminate sharp
points that would otherwise be very hot after running.  This includes the
edges around the perriphery of the combustion chamber, and especially the
edges of the "Westlake promentory" (heart shape) in between the valves.
Also take the sharp corner off of the cylinder bore at the top of the
engine block.

Occasionally someone may overbore an engine to the point that some edge of
the head gasket may be protruding slightly into the combustion chamber.
This is definitely a no-no and should be avoided.  Unfortunately most head
gaskets do not take well to trimming off the thin sealing edges, so in this
case you need to find special head gaskets with larger aperatures around
the cyliders.  Quite often they have to be made special at great expense,
sometimes being made from solid sheet copper.

>My next move is a thermo fan for traffic and an overflow bottle with
recorvery cap. Apart from (hopefully) lowering the engine temp or at least
keeping it consistent, I doubt whether this will solve the vaporisation issue.

If you think you may spend much time with the engine idling in stop and go
rush hour traffic, install a radiator fan shroud.  This makes a HUGE
difference for long term idling in hot weather.  It may still overheat the
carbs and stumble some, but at least it keeps the cooling system from boiling.

BTDT,

Barney Gaylord,
1958 MGA with an attitude
    http://www.ntsource.com/~barneymg


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