Need to advance the timing but there's no adjustment left!

I have the gaskets from Turner Engineering, lovely guy there told me not to be tempted to mess with the valves as they seat themselves over the years and once disturbed will never be the same. Looking forward to the challenge

Welcome to LZ, Glad you found the problem, just re messing with valves was turners saying don’t bother lapping them in?, I’ve just had some delivered and was about to grind them in

steve2286w said:

Welcome to LZ, Glad you found the problem, just re messing with valves was turners saying don’t bother lapping them in?, I’ve just had some delivered and was about to grind th

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I would imagine they meant the existing valves.
Cannot see an issue grinding new ones in, apart form the tedium that is!

Gasket removed and there was indeed a large gap in the gasket between cylinder 3 and 4. New gasket installed and engine back to its old self. Thanks for all the help

lynall said:

They actually blow a piece out between the cylinders, not unheard of, best of all not hard to do either.

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Engine now purring - I took the head off and lo and behold the gasket had blown between 3 and 4. Those two cylinders were beautifully clean and decarboned by unburied fuel. Rebuilt yesterday and everything working. Back to considering a chain replacement as engine misses a beat on idle once in a while and puffs out some white smoke.

PeterJS said:

Engine now purring - I took the head off and lo and behold the gasket had blown between 3 and 4. Those two cylinders were beautifully clean and decarboned by unburied fuel. Rebuilt yesterday and everything working. Back to considering a chain replacement as engine misses a beat on idle once in a while and puffs out some white smoke.

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I would say a miss is ignition related rather than the chain.

Ignition as in fuel delivery? Compression?

lynall said:

I would say a miss is ignition related rather than the chain.

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Ignition as in fuel delivery/ compression ?

PeterJS said:

Ignition as in fuel delivery? Compression?

Ignition as in fuel delivery/ compression ?

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Neither, I would be checking/replacing the spark side ie coil/distributor/points/capacitor/leads/plugs etc.
Iirc the distributor shaft bushes wear allowing the shaft to wobble and mess up the timing, might come up on a search on here/google.

lynall said:

Neither, I would be checking/replacing the spark side ie coil/distributor/points/capacitor/leads/plugs etc.
Iirc the distributor shaft bushes wear allowing the shaft to wobble and mess up the timing, might come up on a search on here/google.

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Lynall, it’s a diesel so I’m going to have the injectors checked incase they are squirting neat duel rather than atomised fuel. Also
I have read that the injection pump drive gear can wear causing an injection timing lag of a few degrees - haven’t been able to find one of these though. Thanks for all your help

PeterJS said:

Lynall, it’s a diesel so I’m going to have the injectors checked incase they are squirting neat duel rather than atomised fuel. Also
I have read that the injection pump drive gear can wear causing an injection timing lag of a few degrees - haven’t been able to find one of these though. Thanks for all your help

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Injector service is always a good idea. Those injectors are a service item, there is an interval at which they should be checked and serviced. From memory, it might be 40k Miles on that kind of engine.

But nobody seems to bother any more, they just wait until a problem develops before looking at them.

PeterJS said:

Lynall, it’s a diesel so I’m going to have the injectors checked incase they are squirting neat duel rather than atomised fuel. Also
I have read that the injection pump drive gear can wear causing an injection timing lag of a few degrees - haven’t been able to find one of these though. Thanks for all your help

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Oops, No idea why I thought it was a petrol!

Yes injectors worth a look, but I doubt they will give you the small miss, could also be pulling some air in at one of the pipe joints/lift pump, get enough air = hiccup, then off it goes again until enough air builds up again.

Iirc there is also a gauze filter in the injector pump feed pipe in the inj pump itself.

I wish my exhaust manifold looked like that.