Reply To: Exhausted!

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the info. I haven’t gone down this road as yet but gave the car a good run yesterday on a ‘ballade’ with our local club. Lots of head scratching with fellow members particularly with the guy who was following us in the cloud of steam.

After eliminating the cylinder head from the list of suspects, I am now convinced it’s the bottom half which is the problem and have now discovered that there is enormous back pressure being generated in the crankcase and evident in the rocker cover. The latter is in fact connected to an oil bath filter by a non standard hose breather connection. So, it looks like a failed piston or liner or both is the root of the problem and I shall have to strip it right down to find out. I am not familiar with wet liner engines and I shall have to see what info I can find on liner replacement, particularly how the seal at the base is dealt with. I note that the club spares list includes liners and pistons. There may be a tech article in the club on line archive if, ahem, I can get into it.Thanks again for your kind interest.

Best Regards, Michael.