Couple of Concerns

[kiwi]

Whilst pocking around under the bonnet yesterday spotted a couple of things I would get a second opinion on.

1st one was the amount of gunk around the Carb, seen this before been inclined to clean it off except wondering what causes it.



Second one the wife spotted it was a small drop of LHM on the Drivers side Strut. The pipes has been replaced sometime in its history and this one does not look as though its sitting right. Tempted to undo and reseat but past experiance has shown not always a good move.
Would it be best to adopt the aint broke dont fix approach to this minor leak?



Advice taken on board from fellow BX owners.

[tim leech]

If its running ok and not atually leaking mate I would leave it well alone!

[Mr B]

Hmm. The strut may need a new seal as whoever fitted a new pipe may not have replaced the seal. Or it may just need half a turn to stop the leak.

[docchevron]

If the pipes been out before, whoever did it probably didn't turn the seal round.
Try giving it a gentle tweak, if that doesn't help, remove pipe, remove seal, turn seal around, refit pipe, should sort the weep.

All carbs gunk up like that mate, it wont hurt.

[kiwi]

cheers. The strut I think I will tackle on one of those good warm days when I have patiance. Prating around with a fragile object in single digit temps is proably not a smart thing to do unless urgent.

The Carb this did concern me simply because of the three cars parked up the 19TRS is the most difficult bugger to start on these cold mornings. I am hesitating in taking it up the mountain because of this.
Nothing worse than a 16RS thats going to be dismantled starting first bloody time after a week parked up

[cavmad]

Any decent choke and carb cleaner spray will shift the gunk off the carb, probably a good idea to get a small stiff brush to help it on it's way. Once cleaned if there is any kind of leak it might help it be found better though I've owned cars that looked much worse than that and ran fine.

[kiwi]

Only problem I have is the bugger hates starting from cold middle of winter its damp and cold in the morning. Puts a heck of a starin on the battery.

Bugs me that the other cars including the decommisioned BX starts first if not second turn, where as my 19 is a bit slow.

[jeremy]

All cars should start easily - so if it doesn't - there's something wrong.

1 st question is ignition or fuel?

Does it start better when primed with the accelerator pump? - if so suspect choke mechanism.

If not start checking the electrics - leads would be a good place to start if they're several years old. You can meter them - should be around 10,000 ohms.

Then its distributor cap, rotor arm general connections . . . .

[mnde]

... or ignition timing. Having made a quick adjustment to counteract pinking, I found I had retarded the ignition slightly too far, enough to make it a pig to keep the engine running upon cold startup. Advanced it back a tad, much improved.

Mark.

[tim leech]

If its any use I have spare carb for a 1.6 you can have gratis mate as mines been converted to a manual choke and is a doddle to start.

[kiwi]

Tim, Now thats an idea The decommisioned BX that starts easily I could use its carb? Been thinking of swapping the leads from it as they look quite new.

mnde, you may be on to something. Few weeks ago wifey put 91octane yuk in the car but I never noticed any pinking. Not sure how good my local is for checking this. I know what everyone is going to say but as I have no choice can someone tell me what the setting is for running on 95 octane?

[tim leech]

I can bring it the national and whoever wants it can have it, its un-tested so I dunno what conditions its in.