Colin Lindsay

http://www.securon.co.uk/fitting/seat_belts_fitting.htm Instructions on fitting most types; may be of help?

Lay the kit out beside where you're intending to work on the gearlever / remote assembly, and match like for like as you remove each part, and do one section at a time. It's very simple, but some, like the plastic bushes, are very similar in size but have slight differences that make sense once you work out where they go. Photographs are a great help.

I get that all the time; a few weeks back they took my personal details and car reg and made me sign a form to confirm that I was not running a business. I only have one vehicle with a tow bar so it's used for a lot of grass, stable sweepings, cardboard etc. I'm over there maybe once a week. However re the disposal of oil: they have a large container, like a home heating oil tank, and that gets all my waste oil.

It's normally the other extreme, they're sometimes priced very high for what the pictures show. There's a Mk2 I posted in the Spotted section, 'restored to the highest standards as a labour of love' and estimated at £12000 - £14000 but with crinkly brake pipes and visible dents / rippling to the bulkhead panels which look like they're just been painted over. As with yours, the final price will tell.

https://www.jamespaddock.co.uk/door-barrel-pair-matched-keys-3 Paddocks are cheaper initially but I suppose by the time you add VAT and carriage it's closer to the eBay price. They sell the tailgate lock separately. The original had a sliding cover which the replacements don't have, so you may want to replace the barrel and not the entire unit, but they seem hard to find on their own. I've checked three or four major suppliers just now and all of their online catalogues show door locks and boot / tailgate locks as separate items or else a pair of matching door locks, not as a kit of three matching locks. The tailgate is a different barrel shape but I think other posters here posted recently about changing the lock internals so that they match?

I definitely like the interior! Was that done by a PO?

Remember it could be like the fuel tank drain plug; the plus stays but a large section of metal twists off round it. Try John's recommendation of heat first.

11mm works much better than anything Imperial. I photographed it recently; you can see how much better the metric spanner fits.

And a very nice shade of it too!! Do you know what the actual colour is? My own GT6 was originally Valencia blue with a tan interior, when I bought it it was red, but not Signal Red, with a black interior, it's now definitely Signal Red but when the bodywork was being repaired and prepared for painting we found it had been both white and green at some stage. It happens! (13 owners between 1977 and 2000 so not surprising...)

Grey as in silver? That was a common choice of colour; but the mounting points would have been there even if the belts weren't fitted - my 948 Coupe never had belts but the captive nuts were behind the trims and bodywork. Inertia reels were definitely not factory fitment on that age of car, but you'll find plenty of members here who have fitted them and can advise.

I must look at one of those; I've been struggling with an air-powered SIP DA sander and all it has done is dig into the paint leaving semi-circular marks. Not a great problem as all of that paint is coming off anyway but it's not as easy or efficient as I had hoped. The compressor is certainly big enough for the job, so I'm blaming the sander.

I think the latch is only held on with two screws; I was wondering yesterday if you could buy a compete scruffy version for a tenner and cannibalise it for the bits you need for you own unit?

A few years ago now I asked the father-in-law to help refurbish the threads on a Herald petrol tank drain plug, as I didn't have anything to fit that thread or size. After hours of very careful measurement and gauging he set it to one side, and when I called back later in the week it was still untouched. He put it in the lathe, took a thread chaser, and spun the lathe whereupon massive quantities of metal came off leaving it almost smooth... then asked: "Is that okay?" After leaving me to debate my reply for a few minutes he then produced two brand new ones that he'd machined for me. However: re dies - they're really just for cleaning and realigning threads, not recutting; I always reckon that if they're removing metal they're weakening the grip of the threads. As Rob says, where the threads are part of a larger component they're worth dressing and cleaning, but if it's only a stud and it's worn or corroded then replace for peace of mind.

If you mean that the top flip up part has come off, it's just a roll pin. Should be easy enough to replace, in the meantime try a large split pin. New units are from about £60 up, I just had a quick search online. Two on eBay at present, £10 and £20, might do temporarily.

We have a few locals selling 'part worn' tyres; these are tyres from accident-damaged or scrap vehicles that are still perfectly serviceable. If you can pick them yourself you can avoid the ones that have seen heavy braking - usually just before the terminal accident - and check for damage, or even the age. I learned a while back to go for the spare tyre, which in many cases has never been fitted, and they're great value for my trailer.

Consider it sold!! I like the sound of that stuff - thanks for the link John. Never tried candle wax, that's another tip I must salt away. These are Allen-headed bolts; thankfully I have the Allen key bit for the impact wrench but boy are they stuck fast. I work on them for a few minutes, then go off and do something else, then return again... I'll get there.

Another hour's work using a blow torch and no further on. Once it cools I'll try the penetrating oil and leave for a few hours. Scary thing is: can we expect MOT-exempt cars to go the same way?

Lesson learned, John - one down, three to go and I hope the uninspected two aren't as bad as this one. £40 approx for a new backplate, so possibly times three? Oops... (Can't even get the old backplate off, too badly rusted, so plenty of penetrating oil, heat, and Weetabix needed...)

No, the second was when he picked it up again...

I think that retreads are used tyres that have had the old treads ground off completely then new added in the form of a rubber band that goes right round the tyre, so the centre bit would certainly have been used before - unless they're buying in cheap tyres with terrible (and possibly illegal in the UK) treads, and retreading them for UK / EU spec, so they might never have been fitted. Personally I'd still avoid them, though.

Love the sound of that... "Just out and about"... with no particular place to go, as the song says. The lazy hazy days of summer... made me smile.

Oh Lord. What am I meant to do with this??? The lining came off the opposite shoe and jammed the wheel of this Ifor Williams horse trailer, so I removed and replaced the shoes on that side. Now to replace the other side to balance the braking... drum comes off, no linings at all on either shoe, springs hanging loose and one jammed around the top shoe, but then, no backplate either... tools down for the day. Tomorrow, then.

You mean who DIDN'T connect it? It was actually the overflow pipe, it had come away behind the bath and I can blame that on the previous owners; however we'd used it for some time and I reckon darling daughter likes a much deeper bath than the rest of us, so instead of a slight overflow we had gallons... however it worked out very well as once I saw where the pipes were routed, from below, I was able to move the entire bathroom round and fit a bigger shower and more modern bath, so she's forgiven.

New ones are Centara Vanti AS, replacing Kingstar on the Herald (they were £25 each but not available); we're talking low speed limited mileage so they're good for a few years. The GT6 gets Firestone Multihawks at £49 each but goes slightly faster.

2.5 PI is certainly similar, and the one below does look to have a larger centre.