Hello Everyone, I have recently purchased a 1991 Sambar, and right now, she's a little rough. She smokes like a train, barely starts, doesn't idle, no power whatsoever, fouling plugs with oil. Didn't think I was going to make it outta the parking lot. But, I'm in love. I called around my town, looking to see if anyone was willing to take on a rebuild for a clover, and one Mechanic said that he would try something first, before he would start a rebuild. He said that there has been lots of new products that might fix my issue with rings without a rebuild. He suggested that I try MOA and EPR by BG before going with a rebuild. Anyone used these products before? With all the systems I have, is it pretty much a rebuild? Thanks for any help! AJ
All the smoking and plug fouling can be caused by a very rich fuel mixture. You get a lot of smoke because the oil that is supposed to coat the cylinder walls is getting washed off by all the extra gasoline. A bad needle and seat in the carb, a blocked fuel return line, or a plugged up charcoal canister are a few of the possible complications. I’d start with a good tune up, including checking the compression in the cylinders and setting the timing and adjusting the carb. You need to check the compression on all the cylinders to verify that the rings are bad before deciding that your going to rebuild the engine.
Thanks for the quick response! I'd LOVE for it not to be rebuilt! I'd give anything for it to just be something else. I live in Northwest Arkansas (Harrison), is there anyone on here that might suggest a good place to take my truck to have these things done? What kind of compression should I look for in each cyl? Also, i'm including a pic of the coil pack that I found sitting on top of the engine.. I've looked everywhere for one like it, but this one is odd. I'm thinking this isn't stock?
Any auto repair shop can do compression and leakdown tests. And anyone who rebuilds engines should be doing one or both before agreeing to take the thing apart, anyway. A leakdown can help you identify where the problem likely exists (piston ring, exhaust valve, intake valve, head gasket) while compression testing only tells you which cylinder might have a problem. Typically for a compression test you're looking for one or two cylinders that have a much lower number and the rest of the "good" cylinders having numbers that are very close to each other. If they are all the same number within a couple of psi then that's the best result you can hope for.
Old school rule of thumb was always 12 to 15 psi max within each other! Mine were 168, 175, and 168, if memory serves me correct!
In my experience if you are getting tons of oil smoke with out a bunch of bad noise from the motor it's valve seals that are bad. As far as putting some engine restore type chemicals in it - if you do a compression check and it's low you aren't going to make anything worse by trying it.
Thanks to everyone for their responses. I'm excited to get my truck going. I'll get started on the tune up and and engine checks. Hopefully this will point me in the right direction. Thanks again guys!
