Hi all,
I am new to the Mini world but not turning wrenches. I've picked up this mini with 111K+ miles as a possible project. I might donate it to my grandson. I like the car so I might keep it for myself
Anyway, I bought it knowing it pushes blue smoke out the exhaust and had a definite miss-fire, would barely stay running. I can tell "Somebody" has had the valve cover off for some reason. First thing, I pulled all the coils and spark plugs cyl's #1 and #4 were oil fouled, #4 was the worse and cyls 2 & 3 were carbon fouled. Air filter was plugged solid and PCV hose was barely on pipe at top of valve cover. Replaced the air filter, ( NOTE: No oil in spark plug holes ) cleaned and reinstalled the plugs and coils. Engine started fine but still had definite miss-fire. Disconnected the coil electrical connector momentarily one at a time and #4 was not firing, no change at all. Moved #4 coil to #3 restarted engine and still miss-fires. repeated the disconnect test on #4 no change. Connected spark plug tester to coil and good engine ground and #4 coil lit up my spark plug tester like it was a star wars light saber. Pulled the # 4 spark plug, cleaned it and cleaned #1 plug installed it in #!1 cyl. NO change. Refouled #4 with oil immediately. Can a head gasket leak oil into combustion chamber or are oil passages external? Do the oil control rings stick? My compression tester isn't working, so need to replace the compression tester. I was hoping I'm missing something. PCV?? Is this a common problem? I couldn't find any matches on a search here though. John