Recently I bought a '79 MGB with 77,000 miles. It's a lovely car, having spent
all but the last 6 months of its life in Southern California there isn't a spot
of rust on the bodywork. Even crawling around underneath it I don't find the
rusted bolts and corroded brake pipes I grew up with in England.
Anyway at the weekend I went to work on the tappets. The Haynes manual tells
me they should be 15 thou when cold. However they were set to 10-11 thou when
cold. I have no idea why. The car came with a wad of receipts, one of which is
for a reconditioned cyclinder head about 10,000 miles ago (I don't know if this
is relevant).
Maybe it wasn't the right response but I decided to reset them to the correct
15 thou'. This left me with very noisy tappets so I put them back to 11 thou'
(maybe this was an even worse response).
Does anyone know what might be going on here? Is it likely that something
(the rocker shaft?) is worn? Should I put the tappets back to 15 thou' and live
with the noise? Am I risking damage to the engine?
Thanks for your help,
Paul.
paul_hemson@mentorg.com
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