Today my friend Jjr and I decided to adjust his Manx dune buggy since it has been running sort of rough. First of all, the car is basically stored and doesn't get used much; it's a stock single port 1500 cc with a 34 PICT carb. It had been missing and overall running very roughly with some more smoke coming out of cylinders 1 & 2 as compared to 3 & 4. By tweaking the distributor timing we got it to respond quicker. We adjusted the valves and found most of them were overly tight. Something weird happened. After we adjusted all 8 valves we decided to go back and check them out before installing the valve covers with the new gaskets. We found most of them totally out of whack; some of them too tight, some too loose. We did this three times until we found all were more or less acceptable. After we finished doing that we set up the point gap as per the manual (the engine has an old Bosch 010 distributor...that's old school baby!). When we started it fired right up with a nice idle and no smoke coming from #1 & 2 (as it used to before the adjustment) but when we took it out for a drive, it lacks power. It FEELS like it's running on three cylinders but it's not acting like it is; in other words, it's not backfiring or acting weird; it just doesn't have the pep it used to. Jjr tells me that he found spark plug on Cyl #1 a little bit oily.
Could it be broken rings? Compression?
Lastly, how can we explain the valve adjustment thing? Engine was totally cold. Could it be screwed up valve guides or springs? Maybe loose rocker arm assemblies? We're totally clueless, maybe some of you have experienced this and can help solve this mystery.
Oh, and by the way, Happy Labor Day weekend!
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