My Allegro

[meggersdog]

Don't know if this helps or not,but when I did that convertible Mini many years ago I painted it Snapdragon yellow.

This is straight out of the workshop still refitting things

[garycox]

I took the Allegro for an MOT a few weeks ago, it failed on a little bit of welding and the emissions...

 

Apparently the emissions are twice the limit. I'm not that surprised because it is pretty smoky, trouble is I have no idea what to do about it, any suggestions? Needs to be as cheap and easy as possible obviously.

[AlsoMike]

Is it running rich?

[Andrew353w]

Start by doing the easy stuff first; flush the oil system with flushing oil then change the plugs, oil, oil filter, air filter & ensure the timing's correctly set. Next ensure the carb is set up properly. To do so a workshop book will help, as it will show where the adjustment screws on the carb are. The mixture screw is the important one and once this one's correctly set you then need to adjust the slow running screw, which controls the tick over speed. With all of this done you've done all the easy stuff. Note any improvement by taking the car for a run & note how it feels. A good hard fast run often helps if the car has stood for a long time.

 

If the emissions are still not right, the next stage is a bit more expensive and involves checking the wear in the valves and guides. Really a job for a firm of motor engineers (I can recommend a suitable firm if needed.)

 

Hope this helps!

[theorganist]

My first Allegro was very smokey, apparently from what I was told is that the 1275 'A' series is more prone to oil burning than the others! Not sure if it is true.

 

Hopefully it is something simple, good luck with it!

[scooters]

RUSSET!

 

(aka poo brown!)

[dollywobbler]

They can burn oil, but not usually without reason. If it's smoking, is it blue or sooty black?

[trigger]

The question is when does it smoke?, is it on start up?, whilst idling?, is it worse when hot or cold?, does kick out smoke under acceleration?, does it use lots of oil?.

 

I's hard to guess a cure without knowing more information, It could be valve stems, rings, badly set up carb, anything!

[garycox]

Smokes mainly on startup, it's not that bad after a couple of minutes. I'd guess valve stem seals?

 

I'll have a twiddle with the carb (after some excellent advice from m'coli), I think some open-engine surgery may be required though unfortunately. Obv I haven't got an emissions testing machine though so I suppose I won't really know whether I'm making a difference til I take it back for a test again...

[Lankytim]

My 1300 Agg smoked like a burning oil rig coz of the stem seals. It was scrapped before the MOT due to rust though.

 

You can put loads of string down the spark plug hole and compress it into the valves using the piston, that way you can do the stem seals without taking the head off.

[M'coli]

Keep us posted! We'll get its emissions right somehow.

[Craig the Princess]

What are the CO and HC figures? If one is too high but the other is low tweaking the carb will help, being smokey on start up shouldn't be a problem (hasn't on a couple of my allegros).

[M'coli]

To quote from Gary's Facebook post,

CO - Max 4.50% - Actual 8.89% - FAIL

HC - Max 1200ppm - Actual 1056ppm - PASS

So it's defo a richness problem, but not too difficult to solve.

[garycox]

Right, I STILL haven't had a go at the emissions, although I do have a gas tester thing borrowed from Angry Dicky which will come in handy if I keep it...

 

As I URGENTLY need cash for attending a wedding next weekend, I'm making a half-arsed attempt to put this up for sale.

 

It's taxed til the end of April, and for the MOT it needs the emissions doing plus a little but of welding. It could do with valve stem seals too, paint (obviously) plus I expect a few other bits, but generally it's solid and far too good to scrap or break in my opinion.

 

It recently had a new clutch slave cylinder and just before I got it (about 2500 miles ago) the plugs/leads/coil and some other bits were replaced with new items.

 

It'd need collecting this week from Lewes, I really don't want to sell it but I need the money. If it doesn't sell I'll keep it for a bit longer and try to find/borrow some cash from somewhere else.

 

£250ono.

[garycox]

Provisionally SOLD.