Mjit

So my 2000 has always had a slight steering pull to the left and as I needed to replace the track rod ends I thought I'd give my Gunson Trackrite another go... Car on basically flat, reasonably smooth, solid surface concrete car park. Drive back and forth in a straight line a few times to settle everything, then with steering wheel centred pop zeroed Trackrite in front of/in line with the d/s wheel, then drive slowly over not touching the steering wheel. Jump out and shows a little bit of excess tow in. Tweak d/s track rod length and re-test and showing more or less zero. Check p/s wheel and also showing zero. Got for a test drive and...steering wheel now offset to the left and steering still pulls to the left! Just retested with the Trackrite and still getting zero on both front wheels. Driving over I can see the steering wheel rotate to the left as I go over the Trackrite, if I wobble the Trackrite with my hand it slides easilly and smoothly from side to side, and pushing the car over I can be sure the Trackrite's in line with the wheel and I drive over it in a straight line. What exactly am I doing wrong - or are they just another Gunson tool that should stay on the shelf, like the Clickadjust?

Funny this getting reserected now- I've litterally just placed an eBay order from some 10ml syringes for my next trunnion oiling session, trying the system from the Feb. 2021 Courier.

You mean the seemingly unbtainable standard GT6 Y pieces? No, just some standard plastic plumbing Y pieces from the local DIY store. Not original but hidden out of sight and cost pennies rather than an arm and a leg!

On my 2500S I just have the 2 relays. Not sure what the/your Vitesse has but the 2500S is means to have a pair of dipped+main and a pair of just main, but I've replaced that with 4x dipped+main with all 4 either dipped or main when the lights are on.

I've done something similar on my Spitfire, but rather than hacking the heater box about I went for adding some plumbing "Y" pieces into the screen vent hoses to feed both the screen vents and dash eyeballs. Takes a bit of squeezing in and the plumbing "Y" pieces needed a bit of sanding to get their o/d down to match the hose i/d but just about fits behind the dash. Only issue is that just highlighted how asthmatic the aging blower is so on to trying to source/fit a modern motor/fan - along with wiring in a hazard switch to the dash and turning into a Covid hermit which means I'm actually back 3 steps and trying to get the starter motor to turn over and bring the beast out of a 9-ish month slumber...

If you're really lucky the veneer will be fine and it's just the lacquer that's peeling...and it will all peel off cleanly. Having done this some bits will peel of easilly/others will stick like s**t to a shovel - and no matter how careful you are trying to use a heat gun to soften/separate it you'll end up with some singed veneer/some that comes off with the lacquer. Or you'll try to sand the lacquer and end up sanding through the veneer somewhere - played that game too. Either way you'll probaly ending up with a reveneer job at which point it's eBay for a good length of "American Walnut Veneer" (non-burr for original look + easier to work with) then follow the instructions at https://www.frost.co.uk/how-do-i-re-veneer-my-cars-wood-trim/ - for the original/non-gloss finish at step 11, rather then "Polish the veneer to a high shine" you go over it with very fine (0000 grade) steel wool, lubricated with clear wax polish. Having done this on a big saloon: While not technically difficult by god does it take an age, working through all the sanding steps! It's hard to clamp some of the curved dash parts evenly so tend to get the odd area that doesn't stick - but you can usually work some PVA glue in with a craft knife and just clamp those areas till it's all stuck. For gauge holes I found cutting through the hole, across the grain first, then lots of cuts from the line to the edge with a craft knife, then roll/fold then in to the hole from the front with your fingers, before finally filing them from the front through the hold till they dropped off worked OK. Sanding curved panels, especially those with thin areas around gauge holes is a real fiddely PITA, especially trying to alternate grades of sanding by 90 degrees! With the Rustins just really slap it on rather than trying to brush a smooth surface as you would with paint. It flows and self levels really well - and you'll end up sanding loads of it off anyway so might as well get to that point sooner rather than later. Try to give the Rustins a week between last application and sanding so it's fully cured. Try to buy a roll of veneer, or failing that multiple (and more than you think you'll need) sheets from the same auction so it's all the same bit of tree and all the same colour.

The Moss catalogue has it as FH116000.

I can confirm that yes, this CAN be done. The early light does cover the later holes and you do need to drill some new holes for the earlier mountings. The correct lights for a 1500 are just little buttons. You can see them either side of the GB sticker in this photo:

Fog Lights At the back I know a few people have replaced one of the reversing light bulbs with a red fog light LED, so still looks standard. At the front one of my many (many) daydream jobs is to find some suitable modern fog lights and fab. them into the Mk IV/1500 chin spoiler. Daytime Running Lights The easy option would be to fit some 'halo' headlights. Well I guess the REALLY easy option would be to rewire so your sidelights via an ignition-switched relay, so they came on as soon as you turned the key in the ignition. Actually if you did that you might be able to use the now-unused 'sidelight' light swiitch position for your fog lights (either using the sidelight position for headlights/headlight position for headlights+fog lights, or sidelight posiition for fog lights only/headlight position for headlights only - I know in the big saloons the fog light position gave fog lights on/headlights off, which was scary as the fog lights did diddly squat on the illumiination front the one time Ii tried them in actual fog!).

No, M reg is fine for '74, would just mean registered between Jan. and July 1974 , new registrations just coming out once a year, in August back in the day. The "first registered" issue is probably down to shit record keeping at the DVLA and it getting miss-typed when they computerised everything/nobody noticing in the years since.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185329982606 An admittidly tidy looking Spitfire Mk IV...for £16,995?

Yes - but I found it wasn't really a matter of choice, more flick o/d 'in', touch metal spoke of steering wheel, swear and stop touching metal spoke, flick o/d 'out' and think .oO(That will be the wires up the gearstick shorting then)Oo.

Do you have the 'sprung button' on your car? Parts 106388 and 22G2286. It only seems to be listed for the non-o/d gearbox but have a feeling it's on the o/d version too - certainly replacing the equivalent part on my big saloon made a huge difference to the gearstick feel.

A special spanner most Triumph parts will sell you that has a 1" 'handle' with a 1/2" drive hold in it...that I've never worked out how you're meant to use! Thankfully hand tight (with the special, stubby spanner) is tight-enough. Easy he says! Had to work through all my pairs of circlip pliers to find a pair that would go small-enough to fit and still squeeze enough to compress the circlip. And as for "shake the plunger out"... Done 3 recently* and 2 of them would rattle back and forth quite happily...but one of the O rings would catch somewhere inside and they were buggers to get more than 1mm of the piston to expose past the end of the solenoid body! * Done 3...to discover it was an intermittent inhibitor switch 😒

Check you're getting power to the O/D solenoid. Engine off/ignition on/in 3rd or 4th you should be able to hear the solenoid make a faint 'click' when you flick the switch on/off. If no click try a more direct 12v feed to the solenoid. If you get a click with a direct feed but not via the switch change it so your direct feed goes via the switch. If you get a click from the switch but no drop in RPM when driving it's probably the solenoid seals that have perished, so it's switching in/out but rather than changing where the oil flows to engage the o/d the oild just flowing around the seals. I'd have to hunt for the 3 different sizes but you they are just 'O' rings and you can pick up oil proof ones easily on eBay in packs of 5, then replace them (straight forward - though disassembling the solenoid piston is a bit fiddly, first getting the tiny circlip off and second getting the piston out). If it works for both it's probably the inhibitor switch on the gearbox that's at fault. You MIGHT get lucky and find it just needs tightening or a shim adding/removing but I'd just replace it as they are cheap and don't last forever. If it works direct but not via the switch, it's probably the switch so replace it. If you get an electric shock, it's the wiring. If there's no click, even powered direct you're probably looking at a new solenoid. If everything works and clicks wire a tell-tell bulb across the solenoid, so you can see if it's still getting power when you're driving and flicking o/d on/off. If that's working then you probably need a recon overdrive - probably just the oil pump but o/d units are very much marked "Here be mosters" on my DIY map.

Don't you need to wind them up, rather than down to reduce ride height (OP said too high)? Winding up will compress the spring, making it shorter and so lowering the car.

The obvious first point to check is the fuse box, as I think it's a single fuse for all the lights (should be the middle one).

Where did you get that USB socket panel from? I'm looking to do something similar but that's much neater than what I had planned!

When I did this it was a case of some very careful tab bending out, not all the way, just enough that you could then compress the foam enough to twist the bezel on before pressing tabs back down.

Was trying to remember what that one was called and it actually has some advantages over chrome. Yes if you have good, solid bumpers that just need rechroming then that will be better but if, as after 40 years is quite likely you instead have slightly dented ones that have rusted from the back rechroming means quite a lot of expsneive metal repairs before they can be rechromed. With the paint you can just treat the rust and hide some of the more minor sins with a skim of body filler before spraying. I ended up going with stainless bumpers because I couldn't get my hands on any originals that were worth rechromoing without working out more expensive than stainless.

So you have a choice: The cars aren't drivable so you don't need bumpers yet, and when they are you can do a tour. Sounds like you need to buy another, drivable Spitfire so you can collect the bumpers then... 😈

For stainless bumpers you could take your summer holidays to the UK next year, buy/fit them while here to save postage. Then it's a question of how old and forgetfull you're getting wether you remember to declare them at customs...🤫

I've used AES too in the past (https://www.autoelectricsupplies.co.uk/) Oh, and if you go for "thin wall", which I'd recommend you do don't worry that the new wire's thinner than the old one - it's just the insulation that's thinner, not the wire inside

There's always the good old "CTRL+PrtSc" keyboard combo. That should copy an image of everything on screen to the clipboard and you can then just open Paint and do a "CTRL+v" to paste it into a new image document.

As thescrapman said it's the black earth wire you need to pull of the night dimming relay. From memory it's the light circuit that triggers the relay so removing that would both leave you with a live wire (with lights on) dangling in the metal rear wing but also no rear lights! Remove the earth and the trigger winding can't ever activate, so can't ever trigger the dimming winding. Much easier then the other option of bypassing each lighting circuit from one side of the relay to the other!