Nick Jones

Chris Witor and others sell seal kits. Nick

That's the point though really. If there's a leak path past the filter then the oil galleries can drain back that way as well as through the bearings (latter is really slow) and it'll do that regardless of the filter position. With the filter straight down it will at least stay full but the pump will still have to refill the galleries on start-up. Had this issue on my PI a few years ago - I just couldn't work out why the lag on oil pressure when the filter was straight down. Getting the right O-ring fitted made a big improvement. I've yet to own (or even handle) one of the later, self-adjusting ones so I can't comment on how effective they are. Nick

Mostly the higher priced ones are traders, who have often recently bought the cars for several thousand less from a private seller and done little to justify the mark-up. Presumably they do sell or they wouldn’t be doing it, though I really hope the actual selling price gets knocked down a bit! i would have thought that £ 7.5k Would buy an absolutely top end Vitesse saloon - or have prices gone up due to rarity with so many having gone convertible? Nick

It does. Mine has probably done > 50k now and some hard driven miles amongst them. The diff has had enough but the rest is ok. The OE shafts are pretty reliable too if only you can get hold of decent rotoflex couplings and decent UJs. Nick

The Toyota box cost is now frequently into 4 figures in used, potluck condition. If you can even find one. Trouble is, they get used for converting Jags, big Healey’s and TRs....... I paid £100 for mine, but that was 15 years ago. The conversion kits are high dollar too and only partially applicable to small chassis cars. I cobbled my own together at fairly modest cost (provided I don’t price my hours). Was a significant effort but has paid off handsomely. i do have both RX8 5 speed and MX5 mk 2 boxes in the garage. Neither is going in a small chassis Triumph without mammoth effort IMO. Also some possibilities from Suzuki but care is needed as some have 1:1 5th gear and all are a bit feeble being designed for 1300/1600 engines. Reckon they’ll be tougher than the Triumph effort though Nick

They all vary. Some are better than others. The other thing to watch for is that the spin-on adapter assembly seals properly against the block. On the early versions of the adapter with a simple o-ring seal between the filtered/unfiltered chambers they came supplied with a selection of o-rings of different thicknesses and you had to do a test assembly with plasticine or similar to work out the one you needed. If you selected too fat a seal the outer one would leak very obviously. Too thin though is much less obvious and allows oil to bypass the filter, but also provides an easier drain down path which bypasses the flap. The later adapters are more complex and supposed to self adjust..... Nick

Mines a Mk3. I’m hoping the issue has been overcome now, (it’s holding fuel at the moment), but it was a long and painful journey involving replacing most of the bottom of the tank, then soldering the weld, plus various cleaning, rust treatment and sealing products that promised more than they delivered. Nick

The OD is the more reliable part of the gearbox usually and if they are knackered internally it’s often from running in the swarf from a dying gearbox! Most faults are electrical though. Whiles it’s quite true that the use you intend for the car does make a significant difference, As we regularly use ours for long haul travel, I’d not be without OD or 5th, preferably with a taller final drive as well. The factory original gearing is woefully short. Both my 2L cars have Spitfire 3.63 diffs with the GT6 having OD and the Vitesse a Toyota Supra gearbox with a nice long 5th. 70mph at 3000 rpm. The Vitesse (convertible) will cruise happily at 85 - 90mph (in Germany!), though the crew are less happy due to the noise levels! Its all wind noise though. My Herald saloon could manage similar speeds and was significantly quieter. I’ve not had the chance to drive the GT6 far yet but it seems very civilised at the legal limit even with most of the interior missing. I’d not pass up an otherwise good car for lack of OD though. It can always be added, though it is a pricey business these days. Nick

Wish someone would make a GT6 equivalent. One that isn’t a fabrication costing £ 500...... Wouldn’t have thought that Spitfire ones were rare enough to be worth remanufacturing? Nick

Those double SUs are rare for a reason. They weren’t nearly as good as their competitors - Weber and Dellorto. Look good though. Nick

Do you think?😯 I rather doubt it. I reckon they just took the view that there was an enormous choice out there. Which there is, especially for the TRs and big saloons where there is plenty of space to just hang straight down. Nick

Suspension summary Swing axles, good Light Simple cheap handling is fine if properly driven, especially if lowered or with a swing spring or camber compensator. Swing axles, not so good In standard form, the handling definitely can bite the unskilled / unwary and bite hard. Always tends to feel bit edgy on rough surfaces due to the amount of camber and track change. wheel bearings and UJs fragile Tendency to shed wheels (with brake drum!) due to the shaft shearing. Difficult to find a meaty enough swing spring for a Herald/Vitesse. Rotoflex, good Handling much more forgiving Much reduced camber and track change means the car feels more composed on rougher surfaces more robust wheel bearings and generally pretty long lasting (apart from non OE rotoflex rubbers). CV shaft conversions should be fit and forget. Wheels usually stay on. Rotoflex, not so good Heavy Relatively complex and difficult to work on especially if neglected. Aftermarket donuts sometimes very short-lived. CV conversion effective but expensive. Wheelbearing set-up is fiddly. Can be expensive to overhaul Lever arm dampers best binned in favour of telescopic.

Filtration area has got to affect pressure drop, especially as the filter starts to clog. Oil viscosity will also have an influence as will the screening rating of the filter (ie pore size in microns). However, actual flows are not large and I doubt anyone here is intending to run long service intervals, so I’d be surprised if the physical size makes much difference in the real world. The original filter element is pretty tiny IIRC Edit: when Alan Yeo (aka oldtuckunder, RIP) had discussions with oil manufacturers and filter manufacturers when chasing the causes of bearing failures in competition conditions, he was told several times to change the oil regularly but only to swap the filter every two or three changes as “they filter better when they’ve had some use”. He always reckoned the key learning point though was to make sure that the oil Temperature was at least 60 - 65C before giving it any stick...... Nick

714/2 is another. Two non-return flaps and nice and short. Nick

Congrats on getting it working - mildly surprised you got the PI manifolds and fuel rail under the bonnet...... Sorry for the slow answer - I’m a bit occasional on this forum and was in Europe with the Vitesse when you posted. I’ve not messed with mine. The problem lies with the combination of wild cam and plenum manifold. It needs separate throttle bodies to fully sort, but is not so bad I’m motivated to move fast on it. As yours already has separate TBs, and they are very large (46mm), I suspect your issue is throttle balance. This is absolutely critical and very difficult to achieve with the original linkage and impossible if it’s even a little bit knackered. If the balance is not right then different cylinders see different mixtures (fuel is same air is different). The issue reduces as the throttle opening increases which fits your description. The PIs Have exactly the same issue. Oh, buy yourself a wide band, like working in daylight rather than 3/4 darkness! Nick

1 grease nipple...…. 4 bearings. You'll never get grease to all 4, maybe 2 at best as the grease just takes the easiest path. Nick

How sure are you that a City Rover driveshaft is the same as Rover 100/Metro driveshaft? Much as I'd like it to be true, as far as I'm aware, the City Rover is actually a rebadged Tata Indica, made in India and with no common parts with any previous Rover? Nick

At what temperature? Pressure readings are worthless if the oil isn't properly hot. That's at least 10 miles on a fast road. Nick

Peter, your pic shows a very late block with the bulges and strengthening rib. Earlier versions also exist with bulges but without strengthening rib, and before that, the flat sided ones. I'm not sure of the dates the various changes appeared but I don't think any Vitesse or Mk2 GT6 would have had blocks with bulges from the factory. I'd also say (on the shaky basis of only one pic) that the OPs "special" block has bigger bulges than any of the later standard factory ones. So it's definitely an odd one. Nick

One possibility, given that the original test wasn't done with the throttle open, is that the manifold gasket has failed on that cylinder so it was getting more air than the others. That would certainly contribute to rough running. 5 & 6 @ 75 psi won't be helping either, especially if it is the HG blown between them. If it's a Mk1 engine, HGF between cylinders is quite common. Nick

16PBs and M16 look very similar. I think the diameter of the pad pins is the easy give away. The M16 ones are small (4mm ish) and the others are larger (6mm / 1/4" ish IIRC)

John is probably right - and as a further wrinkle, if your thermostat seals well and has no air relief hole in it, it may itself be sitting in a pocket of air and not getting enough heat into it to actually open. Try bleeding by removing the hose that goes from the water pump housing to inlet manifold. Nick

Justice......? or oil changes? Regular oil changes and a spin-on conversion to prevent the death rattle (which is alot less than ideal, whatever Uncle Pete would have us believe 😛). Our vicar still has a Vitesse...... dunno how his bearings are but the car is very smart.

If they are just kissing the chassis as the dampers arrive at full droop I wouldn't worry. However, if the driveshafts are acting as droop-stops and the dampers have travel left then the dampers are too long. The original dampers for the wheelarch mounts are definitely wrong for the chassis mounts and should not be used. They'll give a boneshaking ride like that too being nearly on the bumpstops at normal ride height. The standard swing axle dampers are also a little long for the chassis extension conversion but usually work ok. I understand there is some "variation" between makes but the ones I've had dealings with have all worked. Nick

I dunno either, but I've seen it quoted as the original reason for the creation of the external feed, then hijacked as a "improvement" for the masses. Many roller rockers actually have plain bushes where they run on the rocker shaft anyway. And your point about the oil escaping more readily through needle rollers is well made....... Actually the x-sectional area around the dizzy drive is greater than the rest of the oil gallery. The IMO the bottleneck is just rearwards of there see 3rd post, page 2 for picture and explanation http://sideways-technologies.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/5712-competition-oiling-draft/page/2/#comments Mind you, I ragged my old Vitesse engine for 70k (on top of unknown but considerable mileage in at least two previous cars) without any oiling mods beyond the spin-on adaptor, and when stripped the bearings were still absolutely perfect in spite of being mere Glacier aluminium tin ones. Crank only needed a light polish to go again on standard size. Nick