Mini engine issues- no idea how to solve them

[Loafers92]

Hi all,

Owner of a 92 Cooper, the last year with a carburetor I think. It spends a lot of time in a garage as I live abroad, and I can't find a good specialist to take care of it as it needs to (local garage basically doesn't know how to deal with it). It spent some time with them for some maintenance and came back in a sorry state: Water temp stays just above the blue area when before it would go just bellow the middle line; lack of power, doesn't maintain idle and stalls, power cut at 3000 rpm (suspect it needs timing done) and very poor mpg (around 15 if I'm lucky. )

Im fed up with giving my money to people that just make it worse, so I've decided I'll just learn how to fix it myself and hopefully learn something along the way.

Any idea of what tools I need to buy to solve these issues and some helpful guides to do so?

The stalling part- Could it be a vacuum leak?

Is the timing something simple to do if I have just a timing gun?



(Engine is to my knowledge, a stock 1275 with maybe a stage one? Has a hif44 and I bought it like this)