Hello All,
I am fairly new to this list, been lurking for a few weeks. However, I have
been a regular on several other team.net lists for a long long long time
now. I do recognize several of your names from the spitfire, triumph, and
spridget lists, so it looks like I'm not the only one with several different
makes of LBC's :)
I bought a '77 B early this winter to be my daily driver when my olds died.
I stumbled across a great B with less than 1000 miles SMOH on an engine
rebuild from an well respected shop. Like any LBC, I keep finding little
things that I don't like or didn't know about from the PO, but it is a very
solid car that I know that I can make my 130 mile round trip daily commute
in without too many problems. I was fortunate that my PO was not a DPO, but
an enthusiast like us.
One this I didn't like was the oil consumption. When you put 650 miles a
week, and you are blowing any oil at all, you can see it on the dipstick
level. This car was desmogged and had no breathing on the top half. What I
did was put in a modern PCV (from a buick, I think)
I opened up a hole on the valve cover, put in a PCV, and ran a 3/8 hose to
a T right before the brake booster. In the "HELP" section at just about
every car parts store, they have a "brake booster oil filter" to keep oil
from getting into the booster. I put this at the booster to protect the
diaphragm. It made a nice neat little package. My first test drive to work
resulted in no "power" brakes. This is because all the vacuum was going to
the PCV, and the booster was seeing little or no vacuum. To fix this
problem, I built a little inline vacuum restrictor and installed it just
behind the PCV. (You can buy these from just about any speed shop, or make
your own from a couple of nylon fittings and a drill) From my experiments,
an 1/8" hole in the restrictor provides enough vacuum to stop the oil
consumption that my B was seeing and have no ill effects on the booster
system at all. Viola! Problem fixed!
I'm pretty sure that the smog equipment was used to vent the engine prior.
That is the case on the smogged triumphs. (Through a gulp valve or anti run
on valve, etc.) I really need to buy a manual to see what was there before.
I must admit I know nothing about the 1800 BMC engine, just Triumph engines
and the A series in my sprite. But British is British, right?
I must say that when I left my lights on the B and drained the battery, I
did look like a fool trying to find the stupid battery in the car. I wound
up jumping it on the starter. But that is a whole different story. Why
would they hide the battery from me?
I'm in central Indiana, and if ever I could be of any help, just ask....
Bill
-----Original Message-----
Subject: Exhaust System and PCV Questions
3) Also, does anyone know where, prior to PCV, the engine vapors
were vented from??? Did they just have the side vent (tube) and no vent on
the valve cover??
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