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 Posted: Oct 10, 2016 03:41AM
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US
Partially because of the distance, but I prefer to find anything and rebuild it. The used engine I bought from Japan I had to rebuild, as it had no compression. I like to do the work myself to know how it is and do it right.

A friend was looking to import a new engine and I ordered him the parts to have it properly build by another friend.Came out great.

If you have a good block, crank & cam, get the parts and the rest is easy. Just do it right, without shortcuts.

 Posted: Oct 9, 2016 06:06PM
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malsal.. you are quite correct.. I will call a SPADE and SPADE. I do NOT know if host has any 1275 cc core engines any more?? I sold the two 1275 cc  I had.. recently to mini engine builders in Calli..  I do have five USED 998cc engine/trannys manuels. for $750 each. just heads UP... buying a core.. bit like buying PIG IN POKE..  later  bc  ps.. malsal. those 4X4 UTVs. with the same chery 1100 cc engine as the new mokes from www.moke.com.hk do come in 2 seaters.. 

 Posted: Oct 9, 2016 02:45PM
 Edited:  Oct 9, 2016 02:53PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jpitt
Well, another smoky drive has brought me back to this thread again, to mull it over some more. It's about 75 deg F outside, and I was cruising around at about 35 mph, but that didn't stop the motor for getting to 110 deg C

Anyway, time to start saving pennies for at least some new pistons and rings, machining, and maybe a better head that doesn't have mismatched valves, sunken seats, etc. 

I noticed that werewolf's posts disappeared from the thread - anybody know anything about that?
He deleted his posts because he doesn't like the word "rebuild" .
he sells running minis,, not parts.

aaannyway, if you need motor, MM our host is selling used 1275 carefully tested before they release the engine to you.  And the price is very reasonable. A good upgrade from 998.

or, just wait , there are mini engines being shipped to port of Washington every so often. Put your name on the list.

 Posted: Oct 9, 2016 02:00PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by h_lankford
how do you know it really is 110 C? Has it literally boiled over? popped the radiator cap? please confirm temp with other device.

how do you know engine is the culprit if it really is overheating?  what about simple stuff like kinked or collapsed radiator hoses, or radiators themselves. 

smoking may be not be all related to temp alone
Yes, it literally boiled over. 

I don't know whether the engine is the culprit for the overheating - could be the radiator. Hoses are fine and are not kinked. Just another item on my list to fix. 

 Posted: Oct 9, 2016 01:49PM
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Moderator probably didn't like what he had to say. Bill BC (werewolf) will tell it like it is and in doing so rubs people the wrong way. He's harmless though right Bill LOL.

If in doubt, flat out. Colin Mc Rae MBE 1968-2007.

Give a car more power and it goes faster on the straights,
make a car lighter and it's faster everywhere. Colin Chapman.

 Posted: Oct 9, 2016 01:47PM
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how do you know it really is 110 C? Has it literally boiled over? popped the radiator cap? please confirm temp with other device.

how do you know engine is the culprit if it really is overheating?  what about simple stuff like kinked or collapsed radiator hoses, or radiators themselves. 

smoking may be not be all related to temp alone

 Posted: Oct 9, 2016 12:32PM
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Well, another smoky drive has brought me back to this thread again, to mull it over some more. It's about 75 deg F outside, and I was cruising around at about 35 mph, but that didn't stop the motor for getting to 110 deg C

Anyway, time to start saving pennies for at least some new pistons and rings, machining, and maybe a better head that doesn't have mismatched valves, sunken seats, etc. 

I noticed that werewolf's posts disappeared from the thread - anybody know anything about that?

 Posted: Jun 24, 2016 11:38PM
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US
 When you finally think it's not worth the trouble any more, there is the Honda engine swap;  Expensive at first, but in he long run........ 
Just don't expect many votes at the car shows; been there...

Retired manufacturer of VTEC/Mini performance conversion kits

 Posted: Jun 23, 2016 08:22PM
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Thanks for taking the time to explain all of that. Makes sense. I have been meaning to do the shop rag test to see what all that nasty on the pistons is.

Really appreciate the help.

 Posted: Jun 22, 2016 12:04PM
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Great thread

Like minded folks helping other folks. Great to see

 Posted: Jun 20, 2016 07:19PM
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Generally, valve guides are reamed to proper size after they are pressed in. The size is 9/32" and not particularly common in modern machine shops so they may use an adjustable ream or something they deem "close enough". That said, I've found some newly sourced guides to be larger than necessary and don't need reaming after install.

What you are describing though with the oil at startup and at take-off are both high engine vacuum situations and the oil that pools in the spring seats and gets splashed around in the top of the head then gets sucked down the intake guides when the intake valve is open during the cylinder charge cycle. Yes, it can also get sucked up past the rings, but the classic symptom of worn guides is what you describe. Worn rings are smoking all the time.

It could also be poor valve guide seals. Or it could even been worn valve stems (narrower stems) and the guides are in fact to spec.

Before you start it up next time, pull out a couple of spark plugs and shine a light inside to look at the top of the pistons and/or stick a rolled up piece of blue shop rag down or long cotton swab on a stick and try to touch the top of the piston center-- if it wicks up oil, that's oil that has fallen down past your valve guides. If your valves are sealing super well, that oil may be stuck up past the valve face and won't get down into the cylinder until the intake valve opens. (you can rotate your engine over a revolution by hand  before you check for the pooling oil)


Also, I wasn't suggesting in my earlier post that you had a problem with a leaking head gasket as minimans is suggesting/agreeing to: I'm only saying that burned head gaskets are commonly caused by lean fueling in a cylinder, and that lean fueling in a single or pair of cylinders is often from bleeding off compression through valve seal or ring seal or intake runner issues.

The head gasket can also blow due to pre-detonation / pre-ignition (bad timing)

The internal combustion engine is all a big complex system that I'm not qualified enough to go into super detail. I can only give you my opinion based my simple understanding of how it all works and on my experience with the minis I've had my hands into since 1998 or so.

Annnnnnyyyyywwwwaaaayyyyy.... My point is you likely don't NEED a new motor and you seem to have something better than what you thought you had. But it could also be a crap rebuild where someone just honed your old block and used new std sized pistons. 

Tune the motor you have as best as you can. Check your points gap if still using points. Make sure your valve lash is all correct at .012" (assuming stock cam).  Set the distributer timing to around 28 degrees max advance (at 3800 rpm) with vacuum advance disconnected when you check it. Check for air leaks at your carb mounting and at the intake manifold gasket. check to make sure your vacuum diaphragm in your distributer isn't blown if you're hooking it up (suck on the tube that connects to the distributer and if you can suck air constantly it's bad). Find some long hills that you can lug up starting at 1800 rpm and topping off at 3000 rpm but with your foot in it. Listen for pinging (which on a mini sounds more like the valves clattering/rattling) and adjust timing if needed. This can also help with bedding in the rings if they haven't bedded in. 

Figuring out your fueling is a whole different thing. I use an innovate LM2 wideband air/fuel meter to help me figure it out.

 Posted: Jun 20, 2016 05:13PM
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Help me to understand how that's possible (valve guides size out of spec and/or incorrect valve seals) if they were both replaced from the kit I linked above, when the head was done? 

Ok - so I didn't notice the markings on the pistons. But to be fair, I believe those are laser etchings, not stampings

Unfortunately, although the pistons were super clean going in, they now look pretty . . unclean. So I don't know that I'd be able to read the markings without taking off the head (which I don't plan to do until I have an action plan).

 Posted: Jun 20, 2016 05:47AM
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...

Next time you see no stampings...

Look again.

 Posted: Jun 20, 2016 05:45AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jpitt
Thanks for all the help. Let's see if I can hit all the questions here:

- No lips at the top of the bores. 
- Crosshatch is visible in all cylinders but also signs of what looks like blow-by in a few cylinders (basically oblong patches where the surface looks slightly different and the crosshatch is harder to see)
- No stampings on pistons.
- Valves adjusted according to the Haynes manual, both times. 
- The photos are after head work. It's a shop I won't be going back to for several reasons. Exhaust valve seats were replaced completely, intake seats were ground. Valve guides and seals were replaced with MM parts, one intake valve was replaced, all other valves were ground. The head was surfaced. That's all I really know about what they did. 
- Smoke is most common at startup, when the engine gets hot, and as I said when it's hot out, I come to a stop, idle, and then accelerate away. That will usually get a nice cloud of smoke depending on the alignment of the stars, etc.
- Poor fueling and timing: certainly possible! On a carb'd car, what's the best way to check mixture?
- Compression: going purely from memory, it was something like 125/155/120/155? I could be way off and definitely didn't save it (just checked the garage).
Your problem is valve guides size out of spec and/or incorrect valve seals.

Oh, and...




 Posted: Jun 19, 2016 10:45PM
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I'm with Spank on this, all cylinders show signs of of cross leakage on the gasket, one just happened to blow before the others. If they fitted new seats the valves should all be the same height in the head and clearly they are not. something else to look at is the head studs where they are screwed into the block, make sure they have not pulled up the block, remove the studs and put a small counter sink in the stud locations to make sure. while the studs are out run a straight edge across the block and look for sign's of warpage.
And do a basic engine tune after your done fitting the head, make sure timing and mixtures are good as elevated combustion chamber Temps will only make matters worse and that doesn't always manifest itself as elevated engine temps. 

Mini's are like buses they come along in a bunch

 Posted: Jun 19, 2016 09:18PM
 Edited:  Jun 19, 2016 09:19PM
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Thanks for all the help. Let's see if I can hit all the questions here:

- No lips at the top of the bores. 
- Crosshatch is visible in all cylinders but also signs of what looks like blow-by in a few cylinders (basically oblong patches where the surface looks slightly different and the crosshatch is harder to see)
- No stampings on pistons.
- Valves adjusted according to the Haynes manual, both times. 
- The photos are after head work. It's a shop I won't be going back to for several reasons. Exhaust valve seats were replaced completely, intake seats were ground. Valve guides and seals were replaced with MM parts, one intake valve was replaced, all other valves were ground. The head was surfaced. That's all I really know about what they did. 
- Smoke is most common at startup, when the engine gets hot, and as I said when it's hot out, I come to a stop, idle, and then accelerate away. That will usually get a nice cloud of smoke depending on the alignment of the stars, etc.
- Poor fueling and timing: certainly possible! On a carb'd car, what's the best way to check mixture?
- Compression: going purely from memory, it was something like 125/155/120/155? I could be way off and definitely didn't save it (just checked the garage).

 Posted: Jun 19, 2016 08:56PM
 Edited:  Jun 19, 2016 08:58PM
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You still have clearly visible honing marks in cyl 1. It looks like it blew between 1&2, right? It is most common (in my experience) for small bores to blow between 3&4, so those 2 things make my spidey-sense tingle (any chance you noticed if the pistons had any stampings on the top like 020 or 040?-- was there a lip at the top of the bore?-- I'll bet $ to donuts that your engine has a relatively recent "rebuild" with non-factory pistons judging by the honing and piston stampings visible in the one pic.

Head gaskets burn like that most often because of a lean mixture caused by leaking compression or an air leak at that intake runner. Leaking compression can be from a bad valve seal where it mates against the valve seat, broken piston ring(s) or scored cylinder wall, un-bedded rings, etc. The other reason they burn like that is because of stretched head studs which no longer give the correct clamping force, warped head, or incorrectly adjusted valves.

Are your valves adjusted correctly? I'm sorry to ask, but a previous poster once said he replaced his head gasket and failed to explain that he never readjusted the valves and thought he could just get away with removing the tocker gear and reinstalling them.

Your head, if the pics are what it looked like AFTER a valve job, have the valves pretty low in the head. That in and of itself isn't really a problem, but it may be indicative of the quality of head rebuild you received. Curious to know what sort of valve guide work they did-- replaced guides? knurled and reamed? just given a look-see and deemed good? What type of valve seals were installed and on both intake and exhaust?Just intake? I've had a local shop try and use a 7mm pilot in my guides when they cut my seats-- really screwed things up. Never given them another head since then.

Is the smoke all the time, or is it most predominant at startup and after idling for a length of time and then you pull away?

Could the smoking be because of poor fueling and timing? Have you done all of the typical tune up checks?

What are your compression numbers? I've had numbers vary wildly before with but with no major symptoms. Rule of thumb is 10% difference but I'd stretch that by saying 20% for the A-series is not uncommon with no ill effects. 

If you decide to pull your head again, I'd advise that you 1) replace your head studs with some new ones. Spring for some ARP studs, available for <$80 if google is your friend. stick a .002" feeler gauge down the side of your pistons and feel if your top rings are all present in their full circumference, especially in #1 and #2 cyl. Not uncommon to break a ring during rebuild/piston installation. Sometimes a thin, narrow feeler gauge will drop down to the #2 ring or you'll be able to slide a piece of broken ring back and forth. The cylinder bore will often reveal long scratches, though, that would hint at a broken ring if there is one. The final thing I would suggest is getting a free spring compressor loaner tool from Oreilly's or Autozone and take out your valves in cylinder 1&2 and see if they have a nice shiny ring showing that they are sealing all the way around on the valve seat and the valve. The exhaust may not be shiny, but you shouldn't see obvious un-uniform areas. Lapping paste and a lapping stick is also available for purchase at most of these stores, too.

Again, I think your engine is "rebuilt" but look forward to being told I'm wrong.

 Posted: Jun 19, 2016 08:17PM
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I don't have a ton of engine work experience but I've done my fair share of watching engine-building shows and consider myself mechanically inclined 

Seems like "grey" smoke to me, and smells a heck of a lot like oil. Worse when hot, much worse when I idle at a stop when the motor is hot, then take off.

When I reinstalled the head the first time, I used a "standard" gasket from MM (MMKT004). See attached for how that ended up. The pistons were clean before the head went on, as was the head (back from the machine shop). I didn't put many miles on it - in the hundreds.

Then I redid it, with a genuine Unipart copper head gasket. It's smoking, though makes "decent" power it seems. The bottom end is a total question mark. I tried to determine whether it was flat but didn't use any scientific methods to do so.

Yes, I used a torque wrench and followed the Haynes torque sequence to the T, dry studs and nuts.

I did NOT start the engine without coolant and let it cool before adding coolant. Was I supposed to? (Oh no!)

 Posted: Jun 19, 2016 03:42PM
jeg
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I'm a fan of the venerable 998.  Not knowing what your skills are makes this a bit difficult, but you said that you took the head off and re-installed it.  I'll assume you've got a Haynes Manual or at least a workshop manual reprint.

The question becomes basically 'how' - I suspect your 'method' might need re-visiting.

I don't know if you're aware that this website has an archive of various technical articles, nor do I know if you've seen this article, but if you haven't, it's well worth re-visiting your efforts:

CYLINDER HEAD - Torque-down and head gasket problems

Did you check the cylinder head and / or engine block to see if they could be warped?  Which head gasket did you use, genuine UniPart Copper or some other?

Did you over-torque the head studs?

Did you start the engine without coolant and let it cool before adding coolant?

So many possible reasons for your overheating/blowing smoke (what color smoke?  White, blue or black?)

The peasants are revolting...          

"Gone with the Wind" - a brief yet moving vignette concerning lactose intolerance

 Posted: Jun 19, 2016 05:42AM
 Edited:  Jun 20, 2016 04:22AM
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