I took the car out and followed Sean's advice and in top gear accelerated from 30mph to 60mph and back down again using engine braking about 6 times. I didn't manage to do this one turn after the other in a subsequent fashion due to traffic, corners, hills etc. but I feel that I gave the rings a good working.

I didn't notice anything abnormal on the drive smoke wise on that drive but I have been paying close attention recently and when I start it from cold it does chuck out a bit of blue-ish smoke for a second or two.

Also I was driving back from Lewes earlier with my dad and thought I'd do a bit more of the 30-60-30 thing on a massive long straight road, as it was quiet, and I did notice that when I was at 30mph and I put my foot hard down there was smoke coming the exhaust for a couple of seconds. It isn't noticeable under normal driving/acceleration.





Thanks for that, I had a look at your thread. Mine can be a little bit slow to start, you have to but your foot on the accelerator for a good few seconds before you know its not going to spit and stall. It has a 123 electronic, Harley coil etc. and the pistons, barrels and rings are new.

it wasnt my advice just passing on stuff that had been nicked from elsewhere and used on a "tuners" website and passed off as guru like wisdom

Fair enough. On a side note, being as the engine performs wells but chucks out a bit of smoke under harsh acceleration and the engine was left outside for years with out its rocker covers on etc. would it be worth replacing the valve guides as I'm convinced that's the problem with it?

Is it a case of pull the old ones out with pliers and tap the new ones with a drift? Do you really need to re-cut the valve seats?

its a bit more than pulling with pliers and tapping in - thats stem oil seal talk

its possible to knock an old guide out with a shoulderd drift and a big hammer - replacing in a similar manner first heating the head in an oven and freezing the guide. You might be lucky in

when you fitted the barrels and pistons were the rings fitted to the pistons or did you do it yourself its easy to fit one of the single rings upside down resulting in high oil consumption.

We fitted the rings ourselves so it's entirely possible that one could have been fitted upside down. Would an engine compression tester pick up the likely side?

not nesessarily - have a look at the plugs is one wet or got more deposits?

Took the spark plugs out. Here's the N/S which was dry but quite dirty looking...





And the O/S which looked cleaner but appeared to be wetter...

off side is your problem

was the last run of the engine a short one? - the plugs never got up to temp. First is a normal looking plug just a bit sooty looks like it may have been loose, bit of deposits on the centre electrode

Have you had a look at the Valve stem seals the white ones are prone to splitting if the fitting was a bit rough if the inlet split on the OS that could account for the oil being burnt. Exhaust side would make a smokescreen.

Stem seals are going to be head off time to replace (Unless you have a fancy valve spring compressor)

so heads off for the stem seals and a quick double check of the bores and rings while your in there?

Now please explain to me...

That would make sense as the I was convinced the excess noise was coming from the O/S. The last journey was over 40 miles round trip today on predominantly quite, national speed limit roads. Performance was really good as was economy. My brother was driving behind and he had to hang back as he said the smoke was that bad! . Though besides a tiny bit of smoke under harsh acceleration from 30mph in top gear I can honestly say it wasn't noticeable from within the car.

I will have to have a look at the valve stem seals. We have got a valve spring compressor specific to an Austin 7 which is suffice but when it was used before the heads were off which isn't a problem as I'll probably check the bores etc.