Mjit

Hey, don't blame this on the children, they aren't the ones parking the cars! It mummy/daddy parked farther away very few children would refuse to leave the school gate until they moved closer. This is all about mummy/daddy being too lazy to walk more than a few feet, often not even willing to get out their cars so all wanting to be in sight of the gate.

Out of interest which ones, especially calipers, did you go for? Put 4-pot Willwoods from Chris Witor on my big saloon and, well let's just say I really notice the difference jumping between the big bus and my Spitfire now in a way I didn't before! Plus it's an excuse for more shiny things...

Something like MegaJolt is the 'optimal' solution as the ECU is getting a signal every 5° of the 4-stroke cycle and directly from the crank. The flip side is it also involves the most work to fit (its not a bolt-on solution). Next best is one of the 123 Distributors. This is much more 'bolt-on', just replacing the distributor - but that means you have some accuracy losses in all the gears between the crank and distributor drive, plus far fewer index points in each 4-stroke cycle. I think your spark's still coming from a 1930's coil design rather than a 'modern' (1980's) one. And you're not really increasing power by swapping to mappable ignition (alone) but rather optimizing it. The same amount of fuel/air is going into the cylinder, you're just lighting the fire closer to the perfect time to get the most of the bang's energey converted into force pushing the piston down the bore, turning the crank. As a result the max BHP of a mapped car is no different to the max BHP of the same (correctly tuned) engine running on points/dizzy. The difference comes in the fact if you tune a points/dizzy to be perfect under one condition, be that max power/at idle/at motorway cruise, while it might be perfect there it's unlikely to be perfect anywhere else/under any different conditions. At the end of the day you're relying on a couple of weights and springs, with a little bit of vacuum advance to handle everything - and all of that takes time to respond to changes. With MegaJolt the ECUs looking at the load/RPM condition thousands of times a second so can fire the spark at the optimum time, every time, so you get as much of the energy out of each bang as you can.

Buy a car based on body condition, then tinker to your hearts content. Regardless how much tinkering you do it's unlikely to cost you more than buying a 1500 that needs any body work doing. Oh, and if you want an engine that revs AND has torque - swap to mappable electronic ignition. After driving my car one of the Triumph specialists asked me if I'd swapped to a 1500 engine following the swap from dizzy to MegaJolt.

To be honest there isn't that much between the engines. Certainly we're not talking the difference between one that tops out at 60MPH and one that will give a modern GTi a run for its money! If it was me I'd buy based on the condition of the body, as you could buy a 1500 engine and gearbox and swap them for a hell of a lot less than it would cost to replace a few rusty panels...

I seem to remember trying that...only for half the oil to then drain back overnight! As others have said so long as it's in a consistent place don't worry.

Ah, but that "incompressible fluid" part's important - and certainly on my car there's a good amount of air in the plastic and air is compressible. If there's more air in the new pipe you'd get a lower reading.

Some on eBay ATM - though at £42.24 (+p&p) for 16.

Have you ever seen anyone riding a Lime bike, Iain? You see them discarded everywhere but I've only once seen someone actually riding one...

If you get good compression without oil you don't need to bother retesting with oil. If you get poor compression without, retest with oil. The oil 'sinks' so helps the piston rings seal so if you get good/better compression with oil your poor compression's probably down to worn rings/boars. Oil doesn't 'levitate' though so has no impact on the valves so if you still have poor compression with oil it's probably down to worn valves. Or of course it could be both!

First off don't do anything until the house is sorted. Let's face it if you were to sell it now the money you get would end up being spent on the house. Once that's done sell the Spitfire and buy something else, maybe a Dolly 1850 - easier for you to get in and out of (so you'll actually get to use it), slightly sporty (vs. 1300/1500 Dollys at least), but also a good one more in the ball park of what you'll get for the Spitfire (unlike say a Sprint).

Logged-in members have been able to access digital versions of back issues via the website for some time now, so no need to keep the paper version once you've read it - https://www.tssc.org.uk/tssc/courier.asp

I doubt the actual printing and postage costs for 12 copies of the Courier would make any meaningful dent in the annual subs. Much of the real cost is actually in the layout and prep. of the document rather than the physical applying ink to paper side. And on the ink to paper side at a guess we pay for a print run of a fixed number of copies, one for each existing member and some spares for new members/lost in post/sell of give away to prospective memebers at shows. As a result 1 person swapping to digital delivery doesn't change the priting costs, just means one more spare copy at HQ. It would need a significant percentage of the membership to swap before the size of the print run could be reduced - and even then savings wouldn't be as great as the reduction in numbers as generally the more you print, the lower the per-copy price. Personally I'd stick with the paper version - much better suited to the life in the 'private reading room'...

Or you go the route Nio are pushing, where batteries are 'hot swappable'. Basically while the plugging in would be the norm you also have a number of automated service centres spread around the country where you drive up, the garage takes control of your car (you still in it) and rolls you into a service bay, automatically removes your battery/replaces it with a fresh, fully charged one, you drive off with a full 'tank'. So when you do need to make a long journey 'refuling' doesn't take norticably longer in a Nio EV than it does in a ICE powered car.

Well the simple one would be to charge people for how long their EV is plugged in, rather than how much electricity they pull. Want to leave it there blocking the charger from 9 to 5? Go for your life - but you'll be charged for 8hrs of charging time (even though you only recieved a 30min 'top-up'). Most people would be motivated to pop back and unplug - and if you've done that you might as well move the car. The other option would be to change the way the charging cable is 'locked' to the car. In my limited experience currently it seems the car locks on to the cable - so someone can't just yank it out and plug it in to their car the second you walk away. If the charger was given control of the lock instead/as well you could site the 'pump' in the middle of 4 parking bays. As soon as the plugged in car's full the 'pump' could unlock the cable from the car/switch from "Engaged" to "Available" and someone in one of the other bays could unplog from car A/plug in to theirs and start their charging cycle.

Can't say I understand the hatred of stop/start people seem to have on here. Hell now I have them both behaving well I do manual stop/start if I'm in queueing traffic. I just don't see the point in sitting still burning petrol when you're not moving, and modern stop/start is seamless in my experience. Based no my limited experience of lane assist I can't way I'm a fan of that - no idea WHAT it was seeing but my mum's Kia was desperate to pull me into the gutter going along one very specific streatch of road. Took my a couple of drives to realise what was happening and freaked me out the first time it happened (when I didn't even know the car had lane assist). Had an electric hire car back in the summer and had to switch the regen. profile down when I was driving. Just too many years of coming off the gas/covering the brake and coasting to get over in 1 week, so lots of randomly slowing down 100m from junctions as I took my foot off the gas and the regen. jumped right in.

DOES the spring length actually change the ride height? Surely the maximum distance between the spring top and bottom plates is fixed by the maximum extention of the damper, which is how an assembled spring/damper would be sat on the bench. Fit them to a car and the weight of the car will compress the spring to a degree - but how much is more down to the spring rate than length isn't it? Too early to think.

Much as Pete's said Just pull off the earth wire from the night dimming relay and it will never dim and takes one PITA out of the equation. The bulb holders often 'fail' internally. They have a copper 'element' that provides the bulb side (earth) contact. This then gets sandwiched between the plastic of the bulb holder and the steel 'spring ring' that secures the bulb holder into the light fitting. All fine when it's brand new but 50 years later with a bit of moisture and you can get corrosion/electrolitic action between the 2 metals leading to a high resistance, or more often infinite resistance and a non-working light. You can carefully peel the bulb holder apart, clean things up, squeeze things back together - but only ever a short term fix. You can hack in your own earth wire, though the 'neatest' solution are to swap to the bulb holders from some of the other Triumphs that actually have a dedicated earth post on them, rather than relying on the spring clip to earth. Long time ago I switched mine so I forget what but at a guess either one of the TRs or one of the saloons. But start with some simple tests: Compare the dark side between 'brakes on' and 'sidelights on'. If the bulb's brighter with the sidelights on than the brakes probably just the bulb in the wrong way around or the brake/sidelight wires connected to the wrong sides of the bulb holder. Rig up some fly leads so you can power the bulb outside the car/bulb holder. They should be the same, both each bulb powered from the same side and also side-to-side. If not try running a new wide to the dark side. Assuming both bulbs/wires are fine repeat swapping bulbs and holders from side to side. If the dark side switches it's a bulb holder issue. If the same side stays dark with the bulb holders wired up but NOT pushed into the light fitting try running a wire from the spring clip ring to a good earth. If the bulbs are now bright the issue is the earthing of the light fitting to the car body - which from memory is just through the mounding bolts. Easy option is to get run a dedicated earth from the light fitting. If none of that works, umm, pass!

The first one is simple - you only need them on headlights that illuminate when you're on dipped beam. If that's just 2 or all 4 will depend how you have them wired on your car (which may, or may not be how they were wired when they left the factory). The difference between dipped and full bean is that full beam just throws light everywhere out infront of you to give you the best view, which would include into the eyes of drivers coming the other way. Dipped beam still throws light out low and, in the UK to the left so you see the road directly ahead and your edge of the road but doesn't throw as much where cars going the other are going to be. Which is all great in the UK, driving on the left but when you hit France and start driving on the right you're dipped beams are now shining most of their light directly into the path of oncoming traffic - hence the need for deflectors. But all that said do you actually expect to drive in the dark while you're in France? If you don't I'd leave the deflectors in the glovebox. If you end up needing them, you can fit them. If you get stopped by the fuzz and they comment on them you can show you have them and go all appolgetic about how you'd forgotten to fit them. But I'd also be amazed if your un-deflected sealed beam headlights throw as much light into oncomming driver's eyes than the LEDed modern blinding you in your read and side view mirrors!

"Lower wishbones parallel with the road" is a theoretical ideal, as it means as you bounce along the road the bottom of the vertical link goes up and down it does it with the minimum of in and out movement, so you maintain the maximum contact patch of the tyre to the road (rather then rolling onto the shoulders). Of course that needs the rest of the suspension geometry to be built for that, you'd ideally want both upper and lower wishbones to be parallel so you don't get any rocking from the top wishbone either. And then you need the steering rack to be in the correct place to minimise bump steer. And then... In reality that's more race car talk though, not cheap assed 1970s British sports cars cobbled together from parts first designed for a cheap family saloon in the 1950s. Your car doesn't look especially odd - though those springs don't look like they've been on the car since it rolled off the production line so you might have standard length but stiffer front springs. They would compress less under the static weight of the car so increase the ride height/push the lower wishbone further away from parallel. Not sure there's really a way to tell without stripping them down (others will confirm/correct) but if they are your options are: a) Different springs, either standard rate or uprated/shortened ones. b) Different dampers with adjustable lower spring pans so you can adjust how compressed the spring is unloaded, which effects how long it is when fitted/loaded with the weight of the car, which effects the ride height. I have b) on my car so my ride height measurements wouldn't help you know if you're are normal or not.

If i'm reading that right richening the mixture, either by opening the choke or winding the jet down sorts the issue - and everything was fine before. That would have me checking the breather pipes between the problem carb and the T piece. If the pipe starts to split extra air gets in after the jet, so giving a weak mixture. Pull the choke and you can richen the mixture to match the extra air.

Yep, even my Spitfire never went out-of-control light on the steering, just enough to be...disconcerting - especially on a blustery day and overtaking lorries. With spoiler fitted the car just remains that little more confidence inspiringly 'planted'.

It was, and it does - both based on my experience of adding one to my MkIV and my aerospace degree. In profile a Spitfire (or most cars for that matter) is an aerofoil, as the air hitting the front of the car has to either go over, around, or under the car. Going either side is much the same distance as cars are generally symetrical but over is a longer distance than under, generating lift. That happens at almost any speed but don't generate significant amounts of lift until you're over 60MPH and by 70MPH is enough to be lifting the front of the car and making the steering noticably lighter. Slap the spoiler on and you basically mess up the airflow under the car, making it more tubulent so it takes longer to pass under and so less of a differential to the air going over the top, and so you generate less lift. From the aerodynamic PoV it's a very ugly, inefficient way of doing it, but it works.

One of it's production line neighbours is still going strong though - I've got a Spitfire, reg. DHP149L.

Disconnect battery. Pop out the starter motor from the bell housing. Clamp a pair of mole grips across the front/rear faces of the flywheel through the starter motor hole. Tighten away. Always worked for me.