Loss of power going up hills

Hello,

Being new to series 2a and living in mid devon ( very hilly) when going up 1:4 or even 1:3 inclines the power just goes. Even to the point I pull over, stick it in 1st gear, rev the nuts out of it and just about make it.

Am I expecting to much from the 2.25 petrol engine, or am I missing something? I've done a full service ( plugs, leads, coil, electronic ignition ).

Got a gauge coming to do a compression test, not sure if that would have a contributing factor or not?

Cheers

Doesnt sound healthy, check compression and fuelling

I note air filter wasn't mentioned (although I assume it was part of the service).

Could be fuel pump. A decent petrol should cope with hills fine. My 88 before I upgraded it could tackle the very steep hill round here with plenty of revs...carburetor and fueling are always worthy of plenty or attention

Is it red? Red ones dont go up hills

Might slow it down a bit but should get up the hill easily enough, as others have said, doesnt sound right

Ignition timing? I did try an electronic ignition system that really didn't like to rev under load - never did find out why 'cos I went back to mechanical points.

Mine did this on hills, found a cracked exhaust valve. until you get your compression gauge, with the engine running, take a plug lead off, listen for a change in the engine sound, re fit the lead, then try the next one. If you find taking a lead off doesn't alter the engine sound, then there is a problem with that cylinder / plug lead. Mine was fine on the flat, just struggled on hills. New valve solved it and made huge difference on hills. Also check valve spring clearances, easy to do.

1 in 4 is steep though. Do we know if the original diffs are still fitted or have the ratios been changed by a previous owner. A few have over the years instead of fitting an overdrive.
Is there any exhaust smoke evident? I would have thought it should hold in 2nd gear being a petrol especially. I think even my diesel might just keep 2nd, with a small tail wind!

If petrol is running right it should manage 1 in 4 in 2nd even on 3.54 diffs, there's plenty of those round here and before upgrading they were mostly manageable in 3rd, 2nd for bends (now 4th, 3rd+od).

Do look at the carb. Its the bit that is often neglected with people spending fortunes on plugs, leads, coils and distributors when £20 on a carb refurb kit would make far more improvement...

Thanks for your input. My compression guage is waiting to be collected at the sorting office! Will pick it up tomorrow. Took the old girl out for a drive the other day, got a strong spark on all four. stripped the air filter and cleaned it. The carb looks new, was running too rich (black plugs) leaned it off, got perfect coloured plugs now. It sounds like it's missing, but still smooth. Im really hoping its just a valve gone and not a ring. Not blowing any smoke. I hope its a case of whipping the head off and re-lapping the valves and setting the clearances up.

Once you get the comp gauge if you find one cylinder is down, I think you can put a few drops of oil down the spark plug hole to form a temporary seal for a potential ring problem, and the gauge should read higher again.

thanks for the tip!

fuel pump? Britpart fuel pumps sometimes don't.

Don't be fooled by the colour of the plugs mine was set up spot on and the plugs will be black if its idled for more than a few seconds. When people used to do "plug cuts" they would switch off the ignition while driving and coast to a halt to see what they were doing at the point when the ignition was cut...quite risky on anything other than a straight deserted road....I got a wideband lambda sensor and used it to set up my carbs (as well as other stuff).

I set mine to idle just slightly to the rich side of stoich, this gives best idle and pick up with my carb / engine....they're all a bit different. Some will idle quite smoothly with it very lean or vary rich.

The power thing though is unlikely to have too much to do with the idle setting (this only has an affect at idle and cruise). If there's a carb problem to do with power it could be a blocked jet, air leak (very common), vaccum advance pipe not set up right, float level too low, leaky gaskets....what carb have you got?

It's a webber 34 ich. Looks newish as it's nice and clean. Would you recommend one of them colour tune plugs so u can see the combustion.

Nah, not really - a bit of a gimmick, I've got one somewhere but it doesn't tell you what it's doing under load...unless you are very brave and stand on the bumper while someone drives it round!

First I'd get your compression check done as that's free.

Then get a set of gaskets for inlet and exhaust, inlet to exhaust (big square one), and all carb gaskets...get two of each and not britpart if you can help it. Also get some high temp Loctite copper sealer and some gun-gum for the exhaust. Shouldn't cost more than £20-30 all in and will leave useful spare stuff over. Refit manifolds cleaning all mating surfaces down, should take about and hour or so, maybe a bit more if very mucky. While you're at it check choke and throttle operate nicely on carb and accelerator pump works (when you first take it off, operate throttle lever, it will wee petrol down your arm).

Vacuum leaks are a common cause of bother and will cause everything else to be wrong. You can try spraying brake cleaner round manifolds and carb to see if engine races but that never works for me on a landy as the fan just blows it all away!

Just a thought, is the throttle fully open? Was having a slow day in the landy today, was maxing out at 50 and normally i have taken it to 70. Went home and checked, foot flat to the floor and the throttle cable can still move a good quarter inch. (On a diesel, not sure if the same sort of set up on a petrol)

Yeah pretty sure it's fully open. I'll order a gasket set once I've done a compression check. still waiting for the gauge to come, ordered it over a week ago.

I'll keep you posted but I'm not going to be able to touch it for a week or so, flat out at the moment.

Any closer to solving the problem?

We had exactly this symptom on our series3 once .. Had fitted a new petrol tank without it being properly cleaned, first full tank of petrol through and it cleaned all the accumulated dust and ****e off the sides and clogged the fuel pickup filter. A sort of triangular pyramid of gauze at the base of the petrol pickup tube.

Easily fixed, took the gauze filter off, actually it virtually fell off, and it worked way better than it ever had!!