Mjit

I've got a lowering block (started with 1" but decided it was too much and happy now on 3/4") and having had the spring/block in and out a few times for one reason or another I'd say you're just making trouble for yourself if you dowel the block to the diff. It's hard enough jiggling everything in and out as it is, would be a bloody nightmare if both the block and spring were dowelled!

The people powder coating your chassic SHOULD have plugged all threaded holes, if not all holes with bungs before spraying the powder to prevent this. As they didn't you'll need to get yourself a set of imperial taps and dies and re-tap them as NonMember has said. The process I'd follow is: Start by using a parts manual to work out which nuts and bolts go where. If you have a bolt to do in a painted hole start by grabbing the dies and find the one that matches the bolt. Assuming you were sent the correct bolts you now know the correct thread size, avoiding any miss-prints, etc. Swap that for the corresponding sized tap and start running it in the painted thread with little or no pressure, though maybe a little more pressure to intially break the paint surface. Running the tab through the paint surface should be easy and the less pressure you're using the more likely it is to catch the existing thread, rather than try to cut a new, cross one. If you're needing to use any real force/facing any real resistance the tap's probably trying to cut metal, not paint, so abort and try again. Usual rules apply - screw the tap down one-and-a-half turns/back off half a turn/down one-and-a-hald/back off half/... till your out the other side or bottom out/run out of thread (sudden big increase in effort required to go any further.

As a starter disconnect the handbrake completely by popping out the split pin from the clevis pin. That takes it 100% out of the equasion. After that it's hard to say from the pic but I'm not sure that IS the correct nut. There should be a long "U" (ish) shaped fork at the end of the hand brake cable that has holes through it. This goes over the rear drum operating leave and you drop a clevis pin through the holes in it/the operating leaver. This "U" piece is then attached to the end of the hand brake cable via a square nut inside the U and a plain nut on the cable side, and it's that connection you want to be adjusting - losten the plain nut and you can spin the square nut/U fork up and down the threaded section on the end of the cable, effectivly making the cable longer or shorter.

Well your first mistake is buying the wrong colour LEDs - https://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/blogs/news/why-you-should-not-use-white-leds-behind-coloured-lenses Having tried both (I too went the eBay route before finding Classic Car LEDs) I can say the coloured ones do work a lot better than the white ones.

My yellow Spit's made it on to Google's satllite view - https://goo.gl/maps/gw4becJg9Eqqof1H6 And my working (red) and dead (blue with stripe) 2000s are there too - https://goo.gl/maps/vFxXYQvvPfkBQnzf7

I went for an even simpler approach - I left the dizzy sat there. Sure it probably saps a little bit of engine power but does help confuse people when I open the bonnet, as "no dizzy" is easy for the brain to spot but the fact the plug leads don't actually connect to it, less so. Also means swapping back to coil/points can be done at the road side if things go wrong...but not had any issues in getting on for 10 years and don't even know if there's still a coil/points in the boot any more! This does get the lockdown 'tinker' devil going though - could strip out the mechanical advance mechanism and save maybe 0.001BHP!

There's a couple of things here. 1. You shouldn't need to make any changes to the bulb holder wiring to (physically) fit an LED bulb, just remove the old bulb and screw/push-and-twist in the new one. Sounds to me like you have the wrong LED bulb. I can recomend www.classiccarleds.co.uk/ 2. If the bulb's wired the same in a Vitesse as it is in a Spitfire then just swapping bulbs won't work. Certainly in the Spitfire the repeater bulb gets current going through it in different directions depending on turning left or right. Fine for a filament bulb but will at best only work turning one way with an LED, and in all likelyhood kill the LED when you turn the other. 3. I'd have thought you'd be OK just swapping the repeater bulb to LED from the low resistance side. It's replacing the 4 corner bulbs that tends to drop the resistance too low to trigger the original bi-metalic flasher relays correctly. 3. Is the repeater bulb NORMALLY dull in a Vitesse? In my Spitfire I replaced all my indicator bulbs with LED, swapping the flasher relay to an LED-compatible one and, at least initially the repeater bulb to an LED too. I was making the change to improve the 4 corners, rather than the repeater and have to say the old filament bulb's now back in the repeater - it was so bright I basically blinddblinded myself every time I used the indicators driving at night! Unless the Vitesse is known to have a poor repeater I'd suggest you migth be trying to treat the symptom, not the disease.

What, like the fact in Scotland, unlike England, the rule is still "Only esscential journeys"...? Unless you actually did just do 400 miles TO Scotland and not cross the border.

I was in my 2000...which looking underneath on my return still has a *!#$ing gearbox oil leak!!!! First run post gearbox rebuild lost most of the oil...because someone had forgotten to tighten the overdrive solonoid 😒 Second run post gearbox rebuild was dripping a little, which I put down to over filling, doing it with just the front jacked up. Yesterday run...not overfilling then. Queue a lunch time jacking the car up and getting under to try and work out where the hell it's coming from, as it isn't obvious. J-type working perfectly but wondering if o rings could be leaking...which means all the oil pooring out while trying to swap it for one of my spares 🙄

Currently on the weekly run (i.e. parked in the supermarket car park and right now queueing to get innto the supermarket itself).

It should be similar to the Spitfire MkIV/1500 ones so: The panel is only DIRECTLY held to the dash frame by a stud and nut near the top on the far right side, and a tab that goes behind the centre dash panel at the top that the top/right centre dash screw passes through. It's then held indirectly, to a greater or lesser degree by almost everything on it! I think the bigger holds are: Eyeball air vent - think the retaining ring for this clamps vent->dash->dash frame. Have a feeling the choke cable may go through a dash frame hole too. Then you have everything else that needs to be unscrewed from, or unplugged to release wires.

OK, worked it out - you just need to give them a firm poke with a jewelers screwdriver from the non-springie side and they pop out. Was being a bit too careful with it before and looking for some hidden pin or something that had to be removed to release them (that doesn't exist). That's another lock-down evening's entertainment sorted

Looking to do the same on my saloon. Have one of the barrels out of the car but can't work out how to remove the pins. What's the trick?

A bigger hammer is always the answer (though PlusGas rather than WD40).

I'd echo the "What have you tried to remove it" question. For me a big hammer and a very long drift (so you're swinging the hammer somewhere you have enough room to swing a cat) have always worked. If you've tried that and it didn't work...try a bigger hammer

Humm, if you're swapping the drive shafts how far have you gone stripping things down? I'd guess there's not much extra you need to unbolt between where you are and dropping the whole diff out the car. Changing the diff. oil's then just a case of turning it upside down and letting it pour out the spring stud holes.

Yep, Peter James set up Footman James, then sold it out ~10 years ago to one of the big insurance companies. He then set up Peter James then set up the Peter James insurance company basically doing exactly the same thing Footman James used to do. Think I read on here that he'd sold Peter James a year or two back too?

This is a great theory but I'd question its practicality, unless you happen to own a private road/race track. 1. 3-4 light applications from 30mph down to 0mph. OK, might be able to manage this one, though would have to be careful about what time of day so my road is quiet-enough to do it without someone driving in to me. 2. 6-7 medium pressure applications 70mph down to 30mph. Humm. Well I live in London so no roads near me where 70mph is safe, so looks like I need to drive on old pads to near a motorway, then change the pads at the side of the road. Even then I can't help feeling trying this on the M25 would end up being "6-7 medium pressure applications 70mph down to 30mph, or until an lorry plows in to the back of you at 56mph".

Not convinced by routing the heater pipe though the clutch pipe expansion loops...

The Moss parts catalogue might help - https://www.moss-europe.co.uk/media/pdf/SPI2019.pdf

OK, so Covid19 lockdown is making work for my idle hands, leaving me with a Spitfire dash to revaneer and a pair of dash eyeball vents from my parts 2000... Do the dash eyball vents just blow cold air on the GT6? From what I can make out from online pics. the basic GT6 heater box is the same as the Spitfire, with the inlet in the middle, inside the fan, which blows air to each side, over the heater matrix, then either to the dash demister vents or footwells based on the position of the big side flaps. The difference seems to be that the GT6 also has a couple of outlets from the middle section of the heater box. These are after the fan but before the heater matrix, so will always blow cold air to the dash and footwell eyeball vents. Is that correct? As I see it I have 2 options. Copy the GT6 setup, adding a couple of extra outlets to the heater box, or just "Y" the demister outlet, giving me the option of hot air to my dash eyeball vents (and countering the cold right hand when driving in the winter).

So finally got all the parts delivered and everything back together so just one thing left to do - see if it works... Fuel system primped using the hand primer on the fuel pump and in to the drivers seat I get with, considering the cars just been sat since October and I lent my battery charger to a friend a few weeks back, very low expectations. Turn the key and after about 3s she starts up! It moves forward in 1st and backwards in reverse but waiting for food supplies to drop before I have an excuse to drive further. Clutch is still annoying me though. As bought the bite point was right on the floor. Well no gearbox issues now and a new slave cylinder but the natural position is still with the slave cylinder piston at the very end of its travel, so needing 3x plain nuts between the bell housing and the slave cylinder so it actually has somewhere to move when you press the pedal. Can't see any difference in the engine mounting and this is now the same gearbox/operating rod that worked fine on the old car. Meh! It works

You CAN remove the head without removing the manifolds but I'd question WHY you'd want to do it that way. Personally I'd just commit to removing the manifolds as you make access to everything a lot easier, the big lump of metal you need to lift off a lot lighter, access to 'persuade' the head to separate from the block better, and the big lump of metal you need to lift off a lot better balanced and easier to handle. I'd also imagine the machine shop will need to stip them off to do any machining work and will the machine shop take loads of photos to ensure they can put it back together correctly, or just give it back to you as a pile of bits and leave you trying to guess...? I've recently removed/overhauled/refitted (almost) my gearbox and dropped the manfolds for that (snapped an exhaust downpipe stud) and it's reasonably straight forward. Mine's an HS4 car so: Split exhaust at manifold/downpipe connection - 3x 3/8" nuts. Remove air filters - 3x 5/16" bolts. Remove carbs from inlet manifold - 8x 5/16" nuts, 2x 3/8" bolts, throttle and choke cables. Keep a good hold on the carbs as you remove and all the linkages will stay together. Remove inlet manifold - 3x 5/16" nuts, (a few) 3/8" nuts (but not the end ones that just hold the exhaust manifold at this point). Lift the inlet manifold free. Remove exhaust manifold - either 2x or 4x 3/8" nuts (the end ones and the middle ones if they aren't shared with the inlet manifold - I forget right now). Lift away the exhaist manifold.

If you fancy some trial-and-error tuning check out https://tecb.eu/onewebmedia/Tuning_SU_Carbs.pdf Tells you all about SU carbs/the different 'steps' in a SU needle profile and a testing procedure (P11). Basically tuning for idle then testing across the RPM/load range both with and without some choke. A rolling road (with a good operator who understands SU carbs) will would be better, but also more expensive and possibly less fun if you enjoy tinkering on your own.

Based on the latest club mag., yep MGF