Anglefire

The modern Diesel engines do have egr valves that certainly on the older engines are worth removing and blanking as they serve no useful purpose except in the lab. They just force feed your engine with crap.

I am going to Le Mans this year but not for this event - but one later in the year and being paid for by work ?

No where have I seen it said you can’t have an mot and still have historic status.

I have one of the type with the adjusting knob - Gunsen and I find it too easy to move the dial - must tape it down as I have timing marks on the pulley so don't need it!

Well I ordered a piston stop on Saturday and it arrived today!

There is nothing wrong with 17A and 35A blow - that is how fuses work! The more over the 17A the draw is, then the quicker it will blow - you run 25A for example long enough and the fuse will pop. The smallest cable will be something like a 1mm - so that will take 17A continuous all day long. And more for short periods - its just gets hot! To put it into context, the MEB used to work on a house taking on average 30A (Or some such figure) and sized the cable to you house to suit. On a Sunday when you are cooking your roast, the draw is probably nearer 70A at times. All that happens is the cable gets warm. Yes its technically overloaded, but it cools down again. Now, I don't know how modern houses are sized these days - but I would guess it would be the same principle, just a higher average current!

That’s a good job otherwise every thread would be full of apologies

You can still get high octane fuel - it’s used in racing generally and can be 110 - though generally it’s not as high as that for rallying (which I’m involved is as an organiser on occasion) but more for the consistency. Its very expensive as a rule too. Lpg is typically 110 octane too.

I come on here and nearly every time there is something else that is "needed" Costing a fortune is this forum

? oops. Sorry Colin.

That I'd say was a little low for an alternator - but probably good for a dynamo (not that I have had a dynamo on a car for about 35years)

Sorted the indicators out this morning. Looking at the old and new the plugs, the left and right wires are crossed. Couldn't find a way of getting the wires out either end. Well I could almost get them out of the plug end but they would then need to be recrimped as they come out the wrong way So cut and swapped them over and used a butt crimp on each. And working again properly!

Not your fault Doug - it looks a lot better than the old one - though to be fair has cost me a fortune in other bits

To be fair, I've seen some very pretty welding that wouldn't hold a matchstick - and some pretty ugly ones that you could hang the titanic on. I know which one I'd rather have. (Ok strong and beautiful is the ideal but ...... ) Lovely looking Spitfire too.

Finally fitted the wheel tonight properly and fitted the two pins to operate the indicator cancel. And they are loose in the holes. ? So put a bit of tape around them for now but need something better because they will come out at some point I’m sure. Don’t want to glue them really.

My replacement lhd indicator stalk arrived yesterday and I decided to fit it tonight. Funnily enough this one has the logos the correct way round for rhd. Anyway. To make it fit in the rh position remove the original plate off the old switch. Swap over the plates. being very careful not to loose any of the ball bearings and springs as you do it! You need to trim about 1-1/4 inch of the tube to allow the wiring to be taken up and over the screw post. Something like this Tighten up the screw but not too tight to hold the switch onto the column Then refit the lighting switch on the lhs. the blue collar has a notch indicating which side the auto cancel is fitted the only snag I have found is indicating left turns on the right indicators and vice versa ? The easy way (Possibly!) is to swap the wires over in the plug as to do it in the switch will be a mare I suspect!

I do like the Buzzweld stuff - and you can get it in any colour you like. POR15 is something I've used before too. Good stuff.

An alternator should charge at idle. (Sometimes it will need a little rev to start the excitation, but unless the idle is very low should continue to charge.) As Dave has already said, you need to have a look and see how the ammeter is wired up - it will either have a shunt resistor (So is effectively a volt meter) or whole current. The latter will have very thick wires going to it as it will have the load going through it (except starting current)

I've ordered and had it delivered a new fuse box as above - looks a good bit of kit to be fair - except the spare connections were slightly bent in a couple of cases - but no sign of damage to the box - just the bag it was in. They have straightened out again ok, os not a big issue. Just got to find some time to fit it!

If it fits it will be fine. There are pretty much only 3 things regarding batteries. Voltage CCA (cold cranking amps) capacity. As long as the voltage is right (nominally 12v ) then it will fry nothing. If the cca is too low then it can struggle to turn the engine over - but tbh with petrol classics it’s not that relevant as they don’t need much to turn over. Capacity is again almost irrelevant as that is just the ability to have some storage for multiple starts etc. And largely governed by the physical size of the thing.

There is something called terraclean being offered in some places for diesels in particular and apart from the people doing it, no one has a good word to say about it. Some going as far as to say it does damage to the engine. Not saying this is the same, but personally I wouldn’t do it.

17/18v is way too high - moderns often run around 15V to increase the power, but then have to be a bit clever in voltage management - my old Discovery is one such beast and when halogen bulbs were fitted, the ECU soft starts the bulbs and gradually increases the voltage so as not to shock them - you can tell if you change to Xenon headlamps (Complete unit change, not just an illegal bulb swap) and unless you change the cars configuration, the Xenon's flicker on startup because they do need more volts (about 50000) to get going before dropping back to about 15,000v)

Funnily enough, the eggs have no valve at all - the two halves are filled and then they are stuck together. As it happens they have just been shut down for maintenance. So the usual 1.2Million eggs a day has been zero. ?

I did see a Malteser one in a shop tonight for a fiver - 1/2 price - but it was well battered.

I too hope you stick around Clive. From being on here a fairly short time, I do enjoy reading your posts and agree with most of them one way or another. It seems to me there are two types of owner on here, those that want to keep their car(s) as original as possible and those (like me) who want to keep them on the road and reliable and if that means a few modern modifications or changes to the 40 year old specification, then so be it. Neither positions are wrong.