DollyMike

How do you turn the engine on the Dolomite 1850? There isn't room to put the large socket on the front pulley. I can only do it by jacking up a rear wheel and inching the wheel round with the car in third gear. This involves continually hopping up and down to see if the timing marks are in line yet.

Ha! I'm fitting electronic ignition in my Dolly - that's why I'm working on the dissy, and what prompted the question.

I'm quite new to the TSSC and have an 1850 Dolomite. I quite fancy a TR7 as a cheap way of getting an interesting car. This afternoon I've been working on the Delco distributor on my Dolomite and its a pig. It's virtually impossible to change the points with the unit in the car because of the terrible upside-down design of the weights, and getting to the two bolts that hold the distributor down is really, really difficult. You can't see the rear one and just getting your fingers on it involves triple jointed wrists. And yet, looking at photos of the TR7 engine it seems even more tricky as there is a tray over the top of the distributor. How do owners cope? Mike

Getting back to the original question 😁, Evans ia a waterless coolant, 4Life is not - it is water based. I have used 4Life in my MGB V8 for many years with complete success. These cars get extremely hot under the bonnet, so it is comforting to know that the coolant won't boil until above 180 celsius. Stuck in traffic in France with the air temp above 35 degrees, the car's temp gauge went off the scale but the car didn't boil. The red colour is an indicator, so not only is it easy to spot any slight weeping anywhere, but if it turns yellow you know you have acid contamination, probably caused by head gasket failure. I like it.