So why won't it run?

Along with my mate Paul Darbyshire (a big thanks to him) Saturday December 28th was the day when PMW was to fire up.

First off we replaced the split hose on the inlet manifoild (after breaking off part of the pipe in the manifold - oops). Refilled with water all OK - for now.

Then spotted that the vacuum pipe from the dizzy to the carbs was somewhat short so found the remainder and fitted that.

Now for the time to start the car.

Err - no, not turning over fast enough. So with 4 batteries all charged up in total we used jump leads from one of them to the battery on PMW and tried again. Not a great improvment and not even a sign of a "cough".

Next up - we used a battery pack which improved things a bit on the turning over front but no joy again.

Right, back to first principles. Is there a spark? So we placed a spare spark plug in number one lead and put that on the rocker cover. Yes there was a spark when we fired it up (Knew there would be from last time but worth checking again).

Next - get the timing sorted. Done with the aid of a didgital analyser.

No joy again.

Next - check that when it's at TDC  on the firing stroke for number 1 that the rotor arm is pointing at the right post in the dizzy cap for number 1. No it wasn't! No idea how that happened but we changed the spark plug leads round so that it was now 180 degrees from where they were and correctly aligned.

Well that made no difference either.

It was probably around this time I noticed water running down the side of the engine block.Probably a core plug, oh good. I should have replaced them as a matter of course but they all looked really good and I decided not to disturb things when I was rebuuilding the engine. Oh well another job for later but that can wait until I get the engine running.

Back to it. I have never been happy with the battery on the car which was a square post type instead of the correct round type and the fixings weren't great either. I had bought new round type battery clamps so we fitted these and substituted a known good battery of the correct type from BRP if I remember correctly.

Now with the battery pack connected the engine turned over noticeably quicker but still without any sign of even looking like a spark of interest.

We checked fuel delivery all the way to both carbs and that was fine. Even easy start didn't help.

OK, just in case our logic was wrong from earlier I put together a spare dizzy cap and leads fitted 180- degrees "out" and we fitted that for another try which resulted in absolutely no difference at all - the engine turning over but no sign of firing up at all.

Just for a bit of light relief we wandered over to the Rover SD1 VDP, fitted a battery and turned the key for the first tine in a year. And it started first time!!!! No, not really but it did sound like if we had begun the day with that one we would have had a car running by the end of it.

All out of ideas it was time to call it a day after 4 1/2 hours of puzzling over why the car won't start.

Any ideas out there?