To be honest my engine was driving me mad, everytime I thought I had it going properly, it would misfire again, there would be poor idling and run ons. Fixed the timing, clean up one of the float ball which was leaking petrol, switch to electronic ignition, still wouldn't run properly.
So I decided to change the exhaust, middle section was blowing in serveral places, really badly around the silencer. It was a pig to get off, I attacked it with a hammer, then a blow torch, then a hacksaw, and a cutting disc. Two days latter the damn thing came off. Alas the back exhaust had a hole in it, but our friendly local garage platted it for a tenner.
It took me all of 10 minutes to rebuild the exhaust system ( always the way with cars, the hard part is getting it off). Fired it up and everything was suddenly fine. Idling at the correct speed, no misfire, no run on. Fixing the exhaust, fixed the engine.
This also gave me a chance to go for a test drive. Now I know that the 1500 engine is the weakest of the range, but one thing I do like about it is the torque. You can drive it a bit like a diesel. In fact the car was actually quite pleasant to drive. My only other experience of it was driving through a blizzard up the M1 and on that occassion I couldn't really enjoy it, because I was trying to avoid losing the backend at 45 mph. Plenty of front wheel drive cars littered the hard shoulder, so it was pretty unpleasant.
Still it is running now, I have the garage cleared, so terry can go indoors into the dry and I can get on with welding. When I get a working welder, the one I bought was faulty , but that is another story.
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