Seizures and soot
1923 Alvis 12/40
Owned by Nigel Boothman (c/o classic.cars@bauermedia.co.uk) Time owned 17 months Latest/total mileage 50/showing 5097 Latest/total costs £20/£1700 Last time Ticked off the last faults
All we wanted was a pleasant, twixt-lockdown evening trundle in the Alvis, out into the countryside in the sun.
Having negotiated the outskirts of Edinburgh, the Alvis began to show displeasure. First it was the odd pop and crackle on the overrun, which I put down to sporting character. It had done it once or twice before. But then it began popping and missing under power, getting worse as the revs rose. We barely had enough urge to climb the hill up to the A68 junction at Dalkieth, with the misfire worsening all the time. So we rolled into a petrol station and I racked my brains.
No plug lead had dropped off, petrol seemed to be present in the carb in normal amounts, the strangler wasn’t stuck at maximum. Had the timing slipped? No, the distributor was held in place quite sturdily. I thought we might as well fill the tank while I pondered the fault. I turned on the battery switch, fuel and ignition and pressed the starter. A spin, no catch. Try again. A groan, then… nothing. Pressing the button for a third time produced no result at all. This looked bad. Dead battery? Can’t be. Other electrical functions still worked. I tried putting the car in gear and rocking it; then back into neutral, and a heave on the starting handle. My worst fears seemed confirmed – the engine was seized.
Defeated, I called the AA. Once I calmed down I began thinking more logically. Had it got very hot? No, barely up to temperature. Had it got oil pressure? Yes, a normal amount. So I had another look. There, jammed against the flywheel teeth, was the starter dog, bound tooth to tooth rather than tooth to groove. I levered the flywheel round one tooth with a screwdriver and it pinged free. No seizure after all.
But that can’t have been why it was running badly. I took a spark plug out and saw it was covered in soot. Perhaps the richer jets I’d fitted on the recent long trip up from England had been fine for fast, top-gear motoring but too much for town driving. Luckily the petrol station sold pan scourers, so Mrs Boothman and I cleaned the soot off the plugs and replaced them. Guess what? It started and ran perfectly.
Then AA man turned up. I felt a bit guilty but he said kind things about the car. Now I’m off to swap to leaner carb jets and lubricate the Bendix shaft on the starter.