Sparky_Spit

I think I sold him a Luminition Optronic ignition kit on eBay some years ago. I remember he had a moan because the fitting kit was missing a screw and the connector block had the wrong rubber gaiter with it. Fair enough I suppose, but he wanted £30 knocked off the price. Since it had sold for twice what I had expected it to go for, I was happy to comply.

Hi Pete, regarding dressing the rocker faces where there is a worn indentation. This is quite quick to do and can be very successful if done carefully. I've done two different sets of rockers with good results. Using a new, small, dead-flat, fine oilstone (approx. 3"x 1" x 1/2") that fits your hand nicely you can take off the proud area of each one in controlled curving strokes, keeping to the existing curvature of the rocker faces. Obviously be careful to go down only far enough so that you remove the outer area while maintaining the shiny work-hardened area. This is where a new, flat, and wide enough stone is essential. When done you need to make sure the rockers will sit in their same relative positions on the shaft so that they still contact the valve stem centrally on the same shiny area, so all springs/spacers/washers need to go back in their original positions. Hope this helps. PS - I'll be interested to hear about your results from JD Robertsons; I live about 6 miles from them and was thinking about getting them to do my crank re-grind.

"Slaggy" welds?.... I use a SIP that can do both gas and gasless and there's very little difference between the finished weld in terms of cleaning up. A good thing about using a gas/gasless MIG is that you can put a gasless wire spool on and continue with the job, if you run out of gas and don't have spare bottle. That Parkside one does look a bit Mickey Mouse.

"I am not a rich man, and I do shop in Aldi rather than Marks & Spencers or Tescos ..and I will struggle to afford this car, but if you'd kindly just wipe me off the sole of your shoe Lucas, I will go my own way. Thanks." I like your style.... Good man! This is an excellent thread and I very much look forward to reading and seeing your updates - keep it up! Mike

If still looking for a lightweight 65A Nippon Denso alternator, try agricultural machinery suppliers. I bought the one on my Spitfire, admittedly a few years ago now, for £19 in a "spring sale" from such a supplier. It is listed as being for a Kubota digger and is identical to the ones being listed online for many times the price.

I would say that he may be keen on a GRP valence now, and think that being GRP it will last forever, but I think he may well regret it in years to come. It'd not that easy getting GRP panels to fit so that they look good; my Honeybourne GRP bonnet was a real pig to fit and still does not sit correctly on the car. I know that a simple rear valence is less hassle to get right than a bonnet, but you have still got to get the vertical joins and covering channel pieces to look ok. Plus, in years to come as he gets older, he may regret his decision and want for a more original look and feel to the car. Do him a favour and insist it needs to be a steel one. Just my opinion of course.

I may have answered my own question... An interesting read is attached (page 16). Clevite-Engine-Bearings.pdf

Many thanks Colin - much appreciated. Does anybody have a recommendation for both mains and big-end clearance values? I'm using Millers CSS20/60 oil.

Would some kind person who has access to a proper factory workshop manual check some sizes and clearance for me please? I have them from the Haynes but want to make 100% certain that I have the correct specs. This is for a 1500 FM Spitfire engine. The figures I have: Standard size Main journals at 2.3115 to 2.312 inches diameter with the bearing clearance as between 0.5 to 2 thou. Standard size Big End journals at 1.875 to 1.8755 inches diameter with the bearing clearance as between 1 to 3 thou. (3 thou. seems a bit big to me?.......) If someone could confirm, or correct, from the proper manual that would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance - Mike

If you have any doubts about the advice above, fit an oil temperature gauge and monitor the readings you get with a 1500 used in a variety of driving situations. It will quite often go up to 120 to 140 degrees C, which is definitely not what you want. As Clive says above, you must use a thermostatic valve too, either as part of the sandwich plate or as a separate item plumbed into the pipes between the sandwich plate and the cooler itself.

About 90 to 110 is a reasonable figure to aim at. Including any measuring errors, I would say that yours is fine.

The sharp-edged piece of metal you are referring to is almost certainly an aftermarket heat shield that someone has fitted. These are designed to cut your fingers and wrists until you get the hang of checking the dipstick without injury. Having said that, they are worthwhile and do deflect a degree of excess heat from the exhaust and its manifold from reaching the carburettors, which you want as cool as possible, so do persevere with it.

Have you made sure that when you closed the choke, the mechanism has fully pushed the jet tubes back up into the carb bodies? If one or both are stuck down, even slightly, fuel can dribble out of the intake and out though the bottom of the carb and also the air filter housing. If the car was running okay, and not running rich, this is not likely but worth checking just in case.

One thing I forgot... When the car was recovered the V5 was needed by the garage/recovery agent, so that the car could be legally kept, transported, repatriated by ferry, etc. I was reluctant to hand it over so gave them a colour photocopy I had with me. They were fine with this, and I was happier hanging on to the original. I also take good quality copies of all the car docs, plus driving licence and passport. It hasn't happened to me, but I've heard of French police insisting that they have a copy of certain documents if they pull you over, and will take you to a local police station to copy them. Having copies to give them takes the wind out of their sails a bit, and gets you on your way again more quickly. With smartphone cameras this might not be such a problem these days, but you never know.

I agree with what Clive says above. We were recovered from a Swiss alp during the 2011 10CR (knocking engine - later found to be No3 BE failure) and we nearly reached the spend limit which was £3K at the time, and still is I think, with Peter James and the AA. We had 3 hire cars, a train trip, and a Swiss classic car garage enlisted to recover it, diagnose it and fix it. I declined the fix and asked for the car to be transported home. The cost was just under £3K all told, and I'm sure it would have broken the limit had Oldtimer Garage in Switzerland repaired it and then had it sent back to me. Later asking what would have happened had it all gone over the limit, I was told that the car would have been "disposed of in country" and I would have received a £3K payment and lost title to the car. There would, of course, be no payment from Peter James to cover the difference between that and its agreed value. Agreed value is worthless under this situation. They did say that at any stage, while the costs had not reached £3K yet, I could go and collect the car myself and claim the cost back, as long as the total cost did not exceed £3K.

I've had a 200cc motorcycle on a Workmate and it coped with it. I did use some ropes from the garage rafters, just in case, but they were not taking any real load.

On a freshly rebuilt 4 pot it took quite some effort to turn the engine over by hand as it was pretty stiff, and I had to use a socket and bar on the crank pulley nut to turn it over for setting the cam timing, rockers, etc, etc. I used Graphogen on all bearings and cam lobes, pre-pumped the engine oil around until I got some pressure using a drill down the dizzy hole, but only used a very light smear of engine oil on the pistons. When starting it for the first time it was fine and the starter didn't struggle. With two more pistons than me I expect yours will be even stiffer to turn by hand. With mine it was definitely the pistons causing the drag, because when it went over TDC/BDC every time it went suddenly easy for a few degrees.

I have a "new" 1500 with similar-ish spec that has now done about 850 miles since its first start. I have static set at 8deg BTDC and an Aldon Amethyst box currently mapped with a conservative curve flattening out at 20deg at 3000rpm, so giving max advance of 28deg. This feels fine for running the engine in and it's giving really good torque from 2k up to an occasional 4k-ish, which is as far as I have taken it so far. It has a Mk3 grind cam retarded by 3deg (crankshaft) to favour torque over high rev BHP. Once properly run in it will go on a rolling road session to get it set up correctly, which as Rob says, is a must really.

When replacing UJs it is a good idea to then put a thin white line of paint across the end face of each UJ/circlip/yoke so that any subsequent rotation of the cups within the yoke can be seen at a glance.

The flanged nuts from Minispares are very good. You get to know what looks and feels like a properly engineered bit of kit and what's been made of cheese to a price, and the Minispares ones are the proper job. If yours look undamaged in the threads and screw onto the studs with no slop then I would re-use them, but it's up to you of course. They're quite cheap so if you are going to have a delay before you do the work anyway, you could order new ones to be there for when you get back, and be 100% sure. I've always just nipped-up head studs with two nuts locked together, but never up as high as those torque figures show. So that's interesting.... Without wishing to teach grandmothers to suck eggs, do be careful to check that the tops of the stud holes in the block are not showing any "pulled-up" threads, as this will prevent proper gasket clamping. Any pulled threads can be removed with a countersink, or a 1/2" drill bit at a push. It's good to see that your fire rings are intact, so your problem is not the same as mine was. Do make sure that the recesses the fire rings sit in are absolutely clean and have a nice square inside corner between the flat and vertical surfaces. Good luck.

Sorry to hear that AF. I feel your pain as I've just gone through something similar. I think I've identified the cause in my case, fixed it, and now the engine is running really well. There's a blind jigging hole right next to cylinder no1 and another next to cylinder no 4, which reduces the support for the gasket material around the fire ring at that point. Have a look at http://sideways-technologies.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/8224-advice-please-gasket-fire-ring-failure-on-new-engine/ ...where the cause for my problem and fix is documented. Hopefully yours will be an easy fix.

An 1/8 NPT tap needs a 10mm drilled hole, which is handy. From the picture below you see that the business end of the sender sits nicely in the oil flow back from the oil cooler (or the inline thermostat if not yet up to temp) and the wiring terminal is clear from any engine bits that might have been in the way, and easy to get to. My sandwich plate is a Setrab one but I think Mocal ones are the same.

If you have an oil cooler sandwich plate, there is an ideal spot on that to drill and tap for a sender, just above where the return from the cooler enters back into the oil gallery which, as Pete says above, is exactly the point where you want to measure the oil temp from. I might be over-cautious, but if you put it into a gallery plug hole it's possible you could impeded oil flow slightly. If interested, I'll post a picture of mine and give you the drill and tap sizes. One potential issue is that it is less easy to seal the sender, as it sits into a curved (rather than flat) surface and it took me several attempts to seal it properly (using PTFE tape) even though the sender has a tapered thread.

Hi Clive - have a word with Mike Charlton; he's got a source for original spec ducting.

I reckon that if you can get the starter motor running fast enough you won't even need to use any petrol. The springs are certain to give you perpetual motion.