Winter overhaul

Well this morning I started up my series 3 88 1974 Land Rover after a winter overhaul including new Timing chain, Carb overhaul with new service kit, New Fuel pump and line, oil change and new choke cable. Was delighted when she started up fine, even better no smoke and a great sounding engine. My only gripe is the exhaust has a constant puff puff puffing which it had before my Winter overhaul as well. What does this mean? I saw on a previous thread the leads to spark plugs could be faulty? I put new ones on about 12 months ago. Don't know what make they were but probably Britpart? Any ideas please?

JTlandyboy said:

Well this morning I started up my series 3 88 1974 Land Rover after a winter overhaul including new Timing chain, Carb overhaul with new service kit, New Fuel pump and line, oil change and new choke cable. Was delighted when she started up fine, even better no smoke and a great sounding engine. My only gripe is the exhaust has a constant puff puff puffing which it had before my Winter overhaul as well. What does this mean? I saw on a previous thread the leads to spark plugs could be faulty? I put new ones on about 12 months ago. Don't know what make they were but probably Britpart? Any ideas please?

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Tight tappets or a burnt valve or two, check tappets (valve clearance) first.

Tappets all checked before and after warm up. All spot on. Valves should be fine after I de coked the cylinder head 4 months ago

what did you set your timing to?

also, make sure leccies are all nice. i'd start by checking your points, then work back.

Its electronic ignition. Havn't messed with Timing at all. Left it as it was as when changing the Timing chain I used the TDC mark on the flywheel in relation to the marks on the camshaft sprocket . and never moved anything from those marks. I guessed the Timing is ok as she starts first turn of ignition key. So a bit wary about messing that up Will carry out a few checks.

Fresh fuel? If you are a masochist then try some mild idle screw adjustment but do so knowing the risks!ie it may be worse than before

JTlandyboy said:

Its electronic ignition. Havn't messed with Timing at all. Left it as it was as when changing the Timing chain I used the TDC mark on the flywheel in relation to the marks on the camshaft sprocket . and never moved anything from those marks. I guessed the Timing is ok as she starts first turn of ignition key. So a bit wary about messing that up Will carry out a few checks.

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err couple basic checks.
whats the smoke like under load? does it lack power up hills? tried taking a lead off one at a time? if one doesn't make a difference then it's not running on all cylinders.

Quick thought reading this is that you've either got a compression issue or ignition.

A cylinder balance test is in order. As stated by Trax remove the leads of the sparkplugs one at a time and listen to the engine RPM. It should stumble and drop in RPM. If one of the cylinders soes so little to none, there's your culprit. In that case swap the plug and lead from another cylinder and see if the problem stays with the cylinder or travels - the inference there is abvious.

If it stays with the cylinder I'd be looking at the compression to see if you've got a buggered gasket or perhaps a bad lifter bit that's keeping the cylinder from getting its charge.