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Woe 3
With an hour to go before we were due to leave to meet you all at the forge for the Riley BBQ I climbed into the car, admired the new hood bag and the new woodwork and the newly repaired window and I went through the start up procedure...and I went through the start up procedure...and...but as you know we never got there.
I did all the obvious things like taking the carburettor apart, checking the float level, taking the jets out...
Then I turned my attention to the valve timing...
And then I retimed the magneto...
And then I went through the start up procedure again...
Anyway after three days of repeating all of the above my friend John Copper (who owns the club which the Multimarquers went to in Peacehaven one Tuesday evening) came over to help. To cut a long story short he said "Have you tried the starting handle?"; well I hadn't, but he did.
WEIRD, there was absolutely no compression AT ALL. So there was no suction for the petrol vapour and so nothing for the spark to ignite.
We poured some petrol into each cylinder went through the start up procedure and it worked...but you wouldn't have still been at the BBQ...
John's theory is that the tappet clearance was too small and that coupled with the Alvis's Mount Ararat moment and possibly the dehumidifier had resulted in carbon forming between the valve seat and the valves thus jamming the valves open
I was mightily relieved as in a few nano seconds my brain had computed the cost of a complete engine rebuild before Angouleme in ten days time.
But I am still stuck with getting a jet for the Solex so if you think you may be able to help, please read on.
Having reset the magneto, the Alvis goes extremely well but it fires back through the carburettor on occasion which I am told is a sign of a weak mixture. Well, the jet is a Solex 110 which is designed for skinflints and people with 9 points on their licence; what I should have is a 115 which is richer.
Somewhere in the Royal Mail infrastructure is a 120, but it's been stuck there for a week. Peter Broom has kindly offered me a 125 which could be far too rich and would obviously make the Alvis significantly faster than any Humber.
Please save Loft from this dreadful experience and see if you have a Solex 115 jet which I could beg, borrow, lease or whatever to get me to and from Angouleme.
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