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MG MGB Technical - overheating up hills


I've just got my 65 running again after 3 years. It seems to be running great, but the engine temp does seem to climb alarminging when going up hills. Ususally its just north of 190 degrees, but as soom as I start going up hills it qucikly climbs to the 212 mark.

I have flushed the cooling system and dymanicly set the timing to 14 degrees at idle (I'm getting a good solid idle at 7-800 revs). The disi has a pertronix module in and was recently rebuilt by John Twist.

The next thing I'm going to do is change the thermostat, but could there be another issue?
Tim Boyle

Tim - I run a 190° thermostat in our MGB, so our temperature gauge runs 190° to 195° all the time. An engine is not overheating as long as it is not boiling the coolant (steam coming our from under the hood while the car is in motion). Going south on I5, over the Grape Vine in the summer heat, with the overdrive engaged and maintaining 70mph, I can get the temperature gauge to as high as 220°, still with no overheating (with a 7psi radiator cap and 50% mixture of anti freeze, the boiling point is somewhere around 230° or higher). As long as the temperature comes down to the level set by the thermostat when you get the load off of the engine, you are doing fine. Remember, the thermostat only sets the minimum temperature that the engine will run at. It has very little effect, if at all, on the upper temperature. Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

Just curious - what do you have your max timing advance set at - a 22 degree difference still sounds like a timing issue - but I am no expert.

J Delk

Hows your carb? Running lean?
.

Sounds like "pinging" at the higher BMEPs needed to climb the hill. Perhaps you could try a degree less advance and see.
Stan Best

All,

Thanks for the sugestions. It was the speed it started to climb that got me concerned. It never did this before I laid it up. We have a lot of hills round the Belmont San Mateo area, some of them fairly steep.

J - How do I check the max advance?? I set the idle advance up based on the manual.

I think I will try backing it off a little and see what happens.
Tim Boyle

Causes;
seals or parts missing around radiator so fan is not pulling air through radiator.
partially clogged radiator.
timing.
collapsing hoses.
fins in radiator clogged with bugs, leaves, etc. restricting air flow through radiator.
Kimberly

This thread was discussed between 25/09/2006 and 26/09/2006

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