Club 80-90 Forums

Hi everyone. My 2.1 petrol engine is missfiring intermittently. This only sèms to happen when under load . I have reset the tappets according to the workshop manual. It ran fine for a day then went bad again . The compression readings are 60 60 on the left and 50 0 on the right is this a head issue or is ot tappets ?. Any help would be great. Dougal

Could be any number of things, but is more likely related to plugs/points/leads than anything else. Another common problem is the metal screens on the plugs. Search Mechanical using 'misfire' - there's loads of threads with more or less the same query. Also use the Wiki - seach under Petrol engine/general faults/misfiring.

Don't read the Wiki and jump to any outlandish conclusions! These things (misfires) are 99% of the time caused by the most obvious issue (spark), rather than a more unusual problem, and you can waste a lot of time and money chasing shadows. Start at the beginning and work forward.

Changed all the plugs rotor arm leads pionts and dizzy cap. It feels like it is starved of fuel i even cleand the carb jets.

I hope those compression figures have a misprint - 0 on one cylinder?????

No that is what the gauge is reading. This is why i thought it might be the tappets or gasket gone between two barrels.

Check the valve preload again, you may want to use 1.5 turns preload rather than 2 turns, if you still have no comp on one cylinder reduce preload further to 1 or .5 turns, still no comp then probably a bad valve.

always worth remembering some engine remanufacturers fitted solid lifters which need a tapoet gap and not a preload.

http://www.ratwell.com/technical/HydraulicLifters.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

gasket between valves unlikely due to the design of seperate sealing rings onto wet liners, cracked head is a possability though.