RICHARD'S ROLLING ROAD RECKONING
Richard Sherman completed the restoration of his USA re-import 1951TD late last year. But he had taken the last 6 months to sort out the gremilns that remained in to the car to get it running properly. The final stage was to tune the engine and have it running smoothly as there was still an occasional misfire. On Friday 4th July , Richard had booked the car into MiniSport in Padiham,(who speialise in tuning classic Minis) near Burnley for a rolling road tune up . Setting off at 8.30 am Richard and I drove the 40 miles or so mostly on the M6 and M65 motorways with no real problem . He did note that the engine was perhaps a little cool, with 80C showing on the gauge. Arriving at the garage for its 10 a.m. booking , the technician soon spotted a leaking carburettor and spent half an hour sorting that out . A quick spin on the rolling road showed good emissions but a check on the display showed up a defective spark plug, identified as #3. This was a new plug and when replaced the car ran very smoothly . Running the engine he set the timing and then put it on the rolling road up to 60 mph showing 40 bhp at this speed . The emissions were then altered to a lean mixture and the timing again checked. Richard then took the car for a short drive and all seemed well. On the way home the temperature needle started to creep up to 90 then 100 and eventually off the gauge. Time to stop!! - and we took the next exit and stopped on the slip road. Steam was coming out of the overfow. A fiil up with water got us another 20 miles and the same thing happened, but this time in a service area. Richard did a quick readjustment of the timing and the car ran home a little cooler. -Yes the timing had been set too advanced and the mixture a bit too lean - so a rolling road reckoning can help find the gremlins but the technician may not always get the settings quite right! photos Cam Cunningham
