Hi All,
I have a 1992 Mini 998 with dual carbs.
A bit of background on how I got to where I am today:
While driving one day, the engine overheated (boiling). I pulled over and found that the main belt had been thrown. The belt was already showing signs of wear and had been squealing for a while, so it wasn't completely unexpected, it just failed before I got around to replacing it.
Since then, I've been having a hard time getting the car running properly again.
After replacing the belt, the engine was still overheating, so I suspected a head gasket issue and replaced the head gasket. The overheating continued, so I wondered if the head had warped or if I had made a mistake during the repair. (I actually had to remove the head a second time after snapping a head bolt during torquing.) I performed one of the coolant combustion gas tests that checks for CO in the radiator, and it came back negative though.
Next, I suspected the water pump. This car came from the Middle East and appeared to have been run on plain water for much of its life so the radiator was quite rusty internally, so I replaced both the water pump and radiator.
Around the same time, the distributor failed (possibly due to something I did during the head gasket work, though I'm not sure), so I replaced the distributor and ignition coil and then retimed the engine.
I also discovered that the secondary electric cooling fan wasn't working. I traced the issue to some wiring and repaired it. As far as I know, however, that fan was not functioning even when the car was previously running well.
At this point, the following components have been replaced:
- Head gasket
- Water pump
- Radiator
- Distributor
- Ignition coil
In addition to the overheating issue, I'm seeing a few other symptoms:
- The engine seems to want to start only as I release the key from the start position, rather than while actively cranking. Not sure if it's related, but it seems unusual.
- There appears to be a slight misfire.
- Once the engine is warm/hot and the choke is off, the idle speed hunts up and down. It will rev up to around 2,000 RPM, drop back down, then rise again. Sometimes it sputters or stalls completely on the low end unless I apply some throttle or pull the choke slightly.
My current thought is that it may be running lean (I recently moved to about 4,500 ft / 1,300 m elevation) or its still the head gasket.
Any thoughts on where I should be looking next?
Some videos of what I am seeing:
https://drive.google...oUb?usp=sharing
Answered
