SpitFire6

I have found brake fluid is good at lifting all the paint and easy to remove. No rubbing, just spill a little and after a few days or a few weeks; all the paint is lifted! Cheers, Iain.

Hi, So fault likely found; low tension valve springs? A new one for me. I think standard springs will be a big upgrade to your present setup. Cheers, Iain.

Hi,

Found this. Unfortunately its in pre-70s/ Old English/pre-metric AKA American temperature scale. -32 & divide by 1.8 to get Celsius. It suggests you really need an ambient air feed to your filters. My inlet temperature is around 50c in traffic- time to change.. Cheers, Iain.

Hi John, Yes as you said. The ballast system coil would be supplied with an "over voltage" all the time the engine was cranking. If anybody has or wants to run points; An improvement in output voltage will be realized if the points condenser is matched to the coil. The telltale that the condenser and coil are not matched is seen when looking at the points contact surface prior to replacement. Both contact surfaces will look the same on a matched system. One contact will have a "nipple" and one will have a crater, when the condenser value is not matched. increasing or decreasing the condenser value will correct this. I cant remember which way. Cheers, Iain.

Pete, do you think that the ~5000 ohms resistance of the R type plugs was reducing the power or output voltage at the plugs, and this was causing a problem? I doubt it. When you have swapped out R plugs for non R plugs and the engine ran better; maybe it was for another reason? John, the running current thru a ballast system and a non ballast system is (about) the same. The points switch the (about) same current. But during starting, the ballast system switches a higher current and the non ballast system switches a lower current. Cheers, Iain.

Pete, Would you also recommend using copper cored spark plug leads as well as non R plugs in a non electronically fueled and fired OEM system? Running an engine with copper cored cable and non R plugs will produce a lot of interference, locally and remotely i.e the house you drive past. I suspect R plugs would "lose" less than you think. I have EFI, so non resistive plug and leads is not a route I would take. Cheers, Iain.

On the underside; The one that goes to the centre is the clean oil out. Hope that's of some help. Cheers, Iain.

SeanG, I cannot tell from the resolution of the photograph if you are connected correctly. But the diagram shows that the engine oil in pipe is the one closest to the HEAD of the bolt? Does that make sense? Cheers, Iain. P.S. Blow into the engine in barb and air should come out of the one below or above it.

Is it not the position of the bolt head on the diagram? Cheers, Iain.

Hi, I would have thought that if you left ferrous parts in 10% hydrochloric acid for a couple of hours it would dissolve? Do you not mean Phosphoric acid, as the part you have cleaned is still in one piece and there appears to be a grey phosphate coating on the part. Cheers, Iain.

Wayne, Keep the rough running module in the boot. In the very, very unlikely event the new one dies, you can quickly fit the "limp home" one. UJ's Cheers, Iain.

John, The circuit you have shown will confuse you. It shows the points triggered from +12V. All negative earth cars are triggered from ground/earth/ zero. This circuit would need a PNP transistor to connect to the grounded points. Throw the drawing in the bin. The way the coil is switched is correct. A real circuit would have additional components across the transistor and such to stop it blowing up. You could make a points triggered transistorized module quite easy yourself. but still left with "the points". If I had to keep the points as the triggering part, I would use Cap-discharged. CD. Buy a dwell IC so that the coil was charged only prior to discharge. Bigger spark means more power innit. Cheers, Iain.

Hi John and Wayne, If you connected the unit across the coil (Now shown to be a 6V coil supplied from a ballast wire/resistor) the module would be getting near 12 volts when the "points" were open and around 7v when the points were closed. The module electronics would not be happy. I guess your car was not driving nice and was worse at higher revs? EDIT: This is only valid if you connected the module power wire to the +ve coil terminal I assume the module has dwell control so that the coil would only be charged prior to the "points" opening. I know you have no points, but you know what I mean. Feed an ignition wire to the plus of the coil. Connect the power supply in to the same terminal and: Module gets its 12v for its electronics. The coil gets a nice 12v and the module will switch the coil on and off as intended. Cheers, Iain.

Hi John, The system was designed to switch a 3 Ohm load (12 v coil). The coil is the load. If you run a 1.5 Ohm coil (6 v coil) the transistor and the internal resistor (I'm pretty sure one would be fitted), will be switching a much higher current and the dissipation will be very high. The 12 volt feed to the unit just powers the electronics. It's late, but i'm pretty sure I am correct? Cheers, Iain.

Hi Wayne, Can you open the module is it it potted with compound? I guess there would be a power transistor for switching and power resistor to measure the coil current. Running approximately twice the rated current thru the unit could easy cause the transistor and resistor to dissipate approximately 4 times their normal power. If "the" resistor has been overloaded it will probably be an even higher resistance, and even though its connected correctly now, will be getting much hotter than normal. If you can see inside; it should be easy to see if things have got hot. Good luck. Cheers, Iain. Edit---- change 4 times their to a correct figure of over two times. (little over 2 to allow for greater volt drop on transistor) OK. 2 times... still double... End edit 23:55Hrs

Hi, To remove lime scale. Forget washing soda. It will not remove lime scale. I feel it will do no harm and even remove any grease/oil in your system. Dilute phosphoric will dissolve lime scale and loves eating aluminium stuff. Sulphuric acid loves to eat copper. Formic acid as used in kettle descalers might be ok. Hydrochloric acid is used to descale commercially. Will eat ferrous. I would use very dilute phosphoric acid and leave it for a few days, if it was my car.. I would then use good quality water to top up. Do you live in Kent or an area with high chalk water (for want of a better description). Drive to the NW where the water has a very low TDS, and top up here. Reference: O-Level chemistry 35 years ago. Cheers, Iain.

Not what I wanted to hear but what I thought. The pinion needs resetting and set and held so it cannot move! I thought having a new diff with a quaife would last a lifetime. Two blown 3.27's and now this one is going the wrong way. Cheers, Iain.

Clive, If you are referring to the pinion nut; this is what I want to hear. Cheers, Iain.

Hi, If your alternator is a modern one and has the replaceable regulator/brush module fitted and is little low on output; you can insert a 10 pence diode into the wire between alternator and module to jack the voltage up. If you have a modern battery aka sealed battery, I would like to see over 14v and less than 14.7v at full revs. Drive belt needs to be of the correct tension as mentioned above. Cheers, Iain.

Hi, is it possible for the front nyloc to unscrew and hence need tightening? I ask, because many years ago my spit/gt6 diff started whining and a local garage tightened it up and noise was gone. Ten years later and now with a quaife fitted the noise is back. Can I just tighten again to the spec. torque? Anybody else done this? Cheers, Iain.