Puffing Billy

lindenengineering · Post by **lindenengineering** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 10:27 am

This is a tale of woe.

Last Saturday a Pinz owner brings us a rough running Pinz. Monday I asked John to take a look at the truck in the yard. After about five minutes he comes back into the shop and says "What do you expect me to do with this piece o crap?"
Having gone out to the running vehicle we lift the oil cap and there's a lovely plume of crankcase gas coming out of the hole. Oh a "Puffing Billy", we all started singing "Polly put the kettle on" (except this wasn't steam but pollution"!)
So tear it down, and what do we find?

A big hole in the forward manifold, anchor boss torn off, leading to a very weak mixture. Judging by the state of deterioration the truck had suffered like this for a very long time.
Off with its 'ead mate!
Or heads in this case, and the pots! If we could see them! The cylinders were buried in dirt. Struth don't these guys ever clean their engines came a retort. Revealed busted rings, and a quick check showed a 42 dg static advance. I expect it needed that to run!

So moral of this Paddy's Day tale. If the truck runs rough, investigate. As the warmer weather is approaching lift the "tin" and clean out the cooling chamber, and lastly if the truck needs 40 odd dg's of advance there's something wrong, cos this excessive advance breaks rings and pistons!
Doing some maintenace will make your Pinz love you, so will your wallet. At about $2500 plus plus a hit to repair this little lot the only folks loving it will be your credit card company with their whopping interest rates!
Top o the morning to you all
Bye Bye
Dennis
lindenengineering .com
Gentlemen shut down those idling engines.

mjnims · Post by **mjnims** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 8:36 pm

Dennis
This is a great reminder that with the onset of spring it is a good time to do a once over. We have seen several of the distributors (dizzy if you prefer) advance on their own. I just got home from an SWPA maintenance day in preperation for our annual Treffen in a couple of weeks. Lots of trucks and lots of little issues addressed and made ready for the trip.

Thanks for the reminder