Transmission or Engine ?

[albersj51]

Fixed at their expense, i hope

[Apis Mellifera]

Forgot to post what the culprit was... appears the ding dongs at the trans shop got the new points on wrong, and likely caused a backfire or sorts blowing out between #2 and 3 :

I don't know if I would agree that a backfire could blow the HG. It's designed to contain combustion, whether it happens as scheduled or not. Furthermore, that looks like it was blown for a long while. It takes more than a few miles to erode that much gasket material. The HG on my MGA blew probably before or shortly after I got it 20-some years ago. I rebuilt it last year and discovered the problem. The burned antifreeze muck actually resealed it and although it was underpowered, it never smoked or lost antifreeze during those decades. Is it possible something similar happened to you? Perhaps on the test drive after the shop did the gearbox service, a worker gave your Landy the beans and dislodged a similar sealing chunk and made the blown HG more apparent?

I've just never seen one go from presumably OK to that bad in such a short period. The good news is, unless the head and/or block are flame cut, a new HG will sort it.

[SafeAirOne]

Put me on the "I doubt the transmission shop had much to do with this" list.

Also, put me on the "wouldn't have a transmission shop mess with my points" list.

[mrdoiron]

Put me on the "I doubt the transmission shop had much to do with this" list.

Also, put me on the "wouldn't have a transmission shop mess with my points" list.

I know, I know... I had my doubts about having them do anything other than reseal the trans, but since they were at it and I needed the rear shaft replaced they did that.. which they put on in reverse. So you get into that mode of how far down the rabbit hole do you go, and had them reverse that at their cost. And since they were working it I had new points set sitting on the front seat, and they ask if I needed that put on for me. So well into the rabbit hole I said ok, and they called and said they heard a very loud "bang" / backfire... then I went and got it - and then had power loss problem.

So could be coincidence - but they didn't charge me anything for the work they did, and I had North Texas Rovers fix it.

lesson #78 learned...

mike