About William Brady Expertise I can answer virtually any question about CLASSIC British cars UP TO THE MID SEVENTIES. Particularly, Aston Martin;Bentley;Jaguar;Jensen;Land Rover & Rolls Royce. Additionally, I can also answer questions for all models up to 2007 which are SOLD IN THE USA.
Experience Over 40 years as mechanic; service manager; Business owner- service and restoration. Recognised automotive expert witness in California Superior court.
Organizations Member of a Number of Professional Institutions; including; SAE.IMI.IE&T. Completed the ASC Master Mechanic Program.
Publications Technical Editor for EJAG a now defunct magazine. I have written numerous articles on Automotive for many magazines and newspapers. I -and my Business- (Bonnet To Boot),was the subject of a lead article in Import car magazine in the 90's
Education/Credentials Graduated as an Artificer Vehicles from The School of Electrical & Mechanical Engineering in UK in 1971 with a Degree in Mechanical Engineering.
Awards and Honors For 15 years I was a member of the SAE transactions committee. Our task was to peruse technical papers and grade them according to a set of criteria.
Question QUESTION: Hi William, iv got a 1.2 corsa n-reg an it when i try to start it, it just keeps turning over it has been stood for a while but before that it was fine and had nothing wrong with it, but now it doesn't start at all or make any attempt to, there is also a lack of compression in 1 of the cylinders, i put new spark plugs in an checked that they all spark properly, an when i took them back out again to check them one of them was covered in white deposits is there anything i can do without having to take it to a garage?
thank you
ANSWER: How do you know it has a lack of compression in a cylinder? It does sound though as if the timing is out, perhaps the belt broke when you rtried to start it after it had been sitting a while. You need to have a professional look at it!
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QUESTION: thanks for the reply and i can tell there is a lack of compression in a cylinder because when i try to start it it sounds like i have taken a spark plug out because there is a break in the sound an the belt hasn't snapped iv had a fairly good look at it my self but i still cant manage to work out a problem for it
thanks for your help
Answer The belt i'm referring to is under the front cover and likely can't be seen without removing things, I suspect you are looking at the accessories belt. The next step is to do a compression test to see if in fact you have compression on all cyl's, The simplest way is to remove the spark plugs and move the cables out of the way, now have a friend turn over the engine while you place a finger in front of each plug hole in turn, you can feel if you have pressure blowing out evenly from each.
