Colin Lindsay

I don't need notifications, I'm on here too many times per day... I like the surprise of seeing what's new.

I've bought two or three NOS versions online that are unidentified by the seller, so very cheap, and just swapped the parts over to my GT6 pump. Many of the Delco pumps are identical bar the lever, so you can swap glass, seals and filters, and if it's only the diaphragm they can be bought separately.

My last roadworthy 1200 ran on severely, but that was a result of a very dirty engine with loads of carbon on the pistons. The engine was like a little line of four coal fires.

Assuming all else is the same, and it looks to be, just knock out the roll pin and swap the levers over.

Same as mine, bought from the Club Shop many years ago. It needs to be kept well greased otherwise it will wear the threads smooth very easily.

The first GT6 were painted white in order to show up stress cracks and fractures more easily.

There were numerous small changes to the 1147 Herald engine with some manuals referring to the late 1200 engine as using the same camshaft as the 12/50. This engine is a very late 1200 from June 1967 having the revised head, later pistons and other parts which differ from the earlier 39bhp engines and indeed differ again from the engine changes in 1965. I've gone through nearly all of my Herald manuals (amazing how many use exactly the same wording for everything) and only the Peter Russek book mentions changes to the camshaft at GA177973 where he states that the journal diameter increased from 1.8402 in to 1.9654 in and the bore from 1.8433 in to 1.9695 in. This leaves a difference of 0.125, or 1/8 in, same as the Spitfire engine. Is it as simple a step to claim that the core plug was enlarged proportionately?

What do you recommend as a sealer?

You'l have to adapt the studs for the SU, aren't they different to those for the Stromberg?

Things are flying along now that I've got mechanical things to concentrate on again instead of interminable bodywork. As soon as that last piston went in the engine end plate went on to give me alignment for the sealing block; as I mentioned earlier I have a couple of spares so as the new one didn't work out I'll use one of those. I've used Loctite sealer (sparingly) to seal things in place and avoid the worst of any oil leaks, but all surfaces are as level as I can get them, the wooden wedges are in place and sanded down flat. Next step was refitting the oil pump. It may seem strange to some after all the work but I'm reusing an old pump - I can't find any original versions and I'm not keen on the modern repro versions. I've checked for wear, alignment and end float and all seems good enough to be reused. I'll monitor the oil pressure on startup with a spare gauge and if anything's not right I'll see about a replacement then. After that the sump went back on with a new gasket and bolts, including the spacer for the breather pipe bracket and the small bracket for the manifold drain pipe. Next, rear engine plate and flywheel. I had a choice of two metal end plates but found that one is bent around the starter mountings, same as my alloy plate was, so I narrowed the choice down to one. Plate on and flywheel fitted and torqued. This is a three-dowel wheel for the diaphragm clutch as opposed to a two-dowel coil clutch. The clutch was bought at Stafford about 1995 and has been stored in the original Borg and Beck box ever since. The plate is reassuringly thick so should outlast me. Centralised with a spare input shaft and torqued in place. After that it seemed a simple job to reattach the refurbished bellhousing and gearbox. It went together quite easily, and I had a full set of nuts and bolts ready for the reassembly. Ten minutes later it's now a complete unit again. I think I'll fit it to the Herald before the head goes on - I'm in two minds about setting the timing, either by use of rockers, or the marks on the front plate, so will leave my options open until I get that far. One thing I've found - if you're rebuilding an engine from scratch, keep an old spare unit handy for reference. On some parts of the engine when the bolts are of different lengths, it's easy to forget which go where, so a quick check of the same bolt in the spare engine makes it easy to match a replacement for the refurbished block. Simple! I have one brake pipe to remake, or at least to bend to a different area of the bulkhead - it fouls the starter solenoid when I try to fit that, so the pipe needs moved by about an inch. After that there's nothing stopping me refitting the entire engine and box back into the car. Maybe one small thing... when I dismantled the engine I broke a stud which I had to drill out; it came out eventually after a lot of work but may have thinned the threads in the block by a little too much. I'm wondering if I should seal the new stud in place? It's through to the water jacket and the last thing I need is steam escaping when the engine heats up... must check tomorrow and see what needs done.

Same as in the Herald coupe, although there the rear screen is further back. Maybe they should have gone for a Ford Anglia roof?

What does a glazier do when he has no glass? Drinks out of the bottle...

Beer always helps, and unlike the car you don't need to put the cap on again. I struggled for far too long with a badly made cap on the GT6, it literally had to be hammered on and off, so last year I changed it for a Fah-ler cap which fitted very easily and may be the reason that my temperature gauge suddenly started to show 1/3 hot instead of 1/2.

Well, it ran for all of about four months like that until the car was taken apart for restoration. Very rich, too, lots of carbon buildup on the pistons but I couldn't say how much the Stromberg contributed to it. The float chamber was the reason I was intending to experiment with the single SU from a Morris Minor, although I did dally briefly with a Reece-Fish carb that has a rotating float chamber so it can be fitted at any angle and adjusted whilst on the car.

He went decimal, changed his name to Mark 3.65...

The main glass runs in the channel of the quarterlight bracket, so if you can manage to brace the glass inside the door so that it will stay put once fully wound down, you can remove the quarterlight assembly without removing the door glass completely from the door by undoing the bolts and pulling the channel out round it, letting the glass remain in the door where hopefully one channel and the winding mechanism will be enough to keep it steady. On reassembly just slide the frame back into the door, manoeuvre it round the door glass so that it runs freely, fit and retighten the bolts.

He's DEAD?

Mark Twain said: "The human race is a race of cowards and I am not only marching in that parade, I'm carrying a banner..."

Let us know how you get on with both fitting it and running it. You can adapt it quite easily to fit the current Herald 1200 cable setup by just making an extended bracket for the rod to feed through.

The last time I saw a bit of paper stating that a vehicle 'was detected travelling at a speed of' someone got three points... it weren't 170 mph neither.

That magazine used to have trips around the local area in both a Standard and a Herald, and the competition was to guess where the car was.

I wonder was it used in the piants business as the sign says 'piants for sale'...? Here's another one spotted at Donington in 2014. The fuel can just visible on the passenger side is actually the fuel tank. There are two or three others, we have one locally that has never been finished due to ill health on the part of the owner.

Back in the days when knife sharpeners used to come round the houses we had a local guy and as he sharpened the knives he sang: "Always cut away from yourself, never cut towards yourself, in case you cut yourself...."

Have you seen the size of his gaskets?

Some suppliers supply modern metric equivalents that seem loose on the pipe. For peace of mind I managed to find original olives that seemed to seat better and certainly sealed with little effort.