(Long Post) Odd problems after Long Layup.

[Stag Beetle]

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Ian Durrant wrote:

Hi Andrew,

Its a while since I bought some but yes I was buying it from my local Toyota Dealer. Their used to be only the red but now they seem to sell a blue or green (can't remember which) as well. I hope your post doesn't mean you have to tried to buy some and its no longer available or something!

Ian

Hi Ian
No as far as I know it’s still available at Toyota I have just been shopping around for some so I will be visiting my local dealer. I have recently had a head gasket failure and I can only put it down to the build up of sludge and corrosion etc in the cooling system, to the point that two of the passageways on one side were completely blocked, so I am hoping that this will be the solution.
Regards Andrew

[stustag]

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Hi Andrew

IMHO the only cure for sludge build up and corrosion in the Stag engine its to

A) Clean and flush all the sludge out of the water ways.(even if this means stripping the engine)

B) Drian radiator and block every year and refill with distilled water and correct antifreeze.

C) When topping up use distilled water and antifreeze.

Stuart

[Stag Beetle]

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Ian Durrant wrote:

Hi Andrew,

Its a while since I bought some but yes I was buying it from my local Toyota Dealer. Their used to be only the red but now they seem to sell a blue or green (can't remember which) as well. I hope your post doesn't mean you have to tried to buy some and its no longer available or something!

Ian

After picking up my newly refurbished radiator I asked the radiator specialist his view of the Toyota Red Antifreeze/coolant He said it was the dog’s bollocks, expensive but worth it, works very well with mixed metals engines and has the best corrosion prevention properties bar none.
Apparently the other colour is pink which is good for 100K plus before it needs changing and come in all the new Toyota’s
I will still be changing it every year but anything that help keeps my water ways clean has got to be worth it.
PS. After looking at my old radiator core I cannot believe it worked, over half the passageways are blocked I can only think it was the kenlowe fan that kept everything ticking over last year.

Andrew

[Ian Durrant]

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Well I took advantage of the long weekend and good weather to have a proper look at the engine. Firstly I chcked the timing chains and tensioners and all looks well. The tensioners are not very far out of their bodies and the there is very little slack in the chains. I compressions tested all 8 Cylinders and all were within a 1 bar range at around 11 bar.

I had another go at starting the engine but it was still reluctant. The only thing I could think of was that the float valves might be stuck (nothing much else could be wrong after a layup that I hadn't already checked. So I removed the carbs and sure enough there were two pools of fuel in the manifold. Luckily I had a pair of stromberg rebuild kits that I bought years ago (just in case). I replaced the valves, cleaned out the bowls and reset the float height.

The engine now starts and the metallic sounding noise has disapeared so it was fuel igniting in the tubular manifolds as I suspected. However there was a second noise that was getting worse. After much headscratching and trying things like removing the power steering drive belt and the alternator drive belt I finally traced it to the fans viscous coupling bearing having failed. (more bad parts?)

Its still lumpy but is firing on all 8 so I suspect now it just needs a good tune up. I changed the oil and bled some air from the pressure gauge capillary and the wierd oil pressure problem seems to have gone, though I haven't had the engine fully warmed up yet. I have also checked the baseplate in the distributor. If the weather holds today I am going to do some more work on it but at least the main worries of it self destructing appear to be gone.

[Oldromola]

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I toohave had a viscous coupling failure on a Stag I bought a few years ago. The car had been virtually unused for a couple of years previously and, whereas that can be good from some points of view,I don't think viscous couplings like not turning over fairly regularly. The noise they make when they finally go is simply horrendous.

[DJT]

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Ian Durrant wrote:

However there was a second noise that was getting worse......... I finally traced it to the fans viscous coupling bearing having failed. (more bad parts?)

Ian,

Glad you have solved the problem. regarding the VC, there is a recentthread on the subject: http://stagownersclub.mywowbb.com/forum1/3754-1.html

Having changed mine for the 4th time in around 12 months, (hopefully this time for a decent unit), I thanked the mechanic who lent me the impact wrench and told him that if I needed to borrow it again to remove the VC, the whole assembly, fan included, will be lobbed as far as possible over the nearest hedge, and I will be converting entirely to electric fan.

Good luck in finding a good replacement.

Dave

[Ian Durrant]

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Thanks Guys. A little fettling today has seen it running much better. Its still a little lumpy but that appears to be the right hand carb which is much too lean (probably as a result of a previous garage getting it through the MOT test). Unfortunately the mixture control grub screw is seized solid (odd considering it lives in a bath of oil) My attempts to persuade it to move (including plus gas and heat) have failed and now the flats on the grub screw are rounded out so it looks like I'll need to replace some parts. I'll start another thread about that though.

[Ian Durrant]

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Oh I forgot to mention. The apparent erratic ignition timing was a faulty strobe. It has a pickup sensitivity adjustment, but the control was not connected to the variable resitor inside as the plastic had broken. it was set to be as sensitive as possible, hence it was erratically firing the light probably when an adjacent lead firing was picked up. This made the light flash erratically (which is how I found the faulty adjuster earlier today). The erratic flashing made the timing marks appear to jump around wildly but with the sensitivity correctly set its as stead as a rock.