After my disappointing weekend I decided to have a 'non-car' day on the Sunday and just chill out indoors and do nothing. I have to say I quite enjoyed it. (Plus it was pissing down with rain all day as well, so I didn't much fancy going out anyway)
I did email a friend of mine who used to work for the Triumph specialist TR Enterprises asking him what he thought of my car problems and basically he advised to do a compression test. This made sense actually and I don't know why I didn't think of it before. As he said, 'if you've adjusted the ignition timing and the fueling and that's making no difference, then it must be a mechanical fault.'
The replacement cylinder head we had temporarily fitted was also an unknown and untested item, so there could even be a problem with that. So, today I ventured outside and did the compression test. Straight away, I could see what the problem was. Cylinder 1 read 80psi, 2 read 140psi, 3 read 120psi, 4 read 140psi, 5 read 150psi and 6 read 150psi as well.
Ideally, all of the cylinders should be reading over 140psi and should have no more than a 10% variation between each cylinder. Number one cylinder running at 80psi is far too low and will make the cylinder run lean and it will also cause a misfire. This could be due to a valve problem, or the valves not seating properly. I wont know until the cylinder head has been removed. (Again!)
So, my plan now is get my original cylinder head (Which is a proven good one) back from Derby. (Dave Harvey took it home with him to get the broken stud out) I will then have it rebuilt with new valves and springs etc, and then go through the laborious process of removing the duff cylinder head and refitting the refurbished one. Loads of fun-not!
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