chrishawley

No. And I wouldn't. If ever anything screams the phrase which ends '.......nine bob note' then this would be it. How do I substantiate that? Here goes. There is a simple ruse for checking out the provenance for eBay sellers. It only takes a moment. Make a note of the company name, type or paste this into browser/search engine, leave a space than add gov.uk. Clck. Pretty much always this directs to Companies House. Then a quick look at 'Filing' or 'People' will allow a distinct impression to be formed. Only takes a moment. Notably, the CH files are specific about nationality. So to take Autogeartransmissions/Motorgear LTD one finds two purportedly different business entities operating from the same residential adress with the same director. Gorden Bennett! I'll get my bearings elsewhere. This might be an opportunity to mention a way that 'bad' sellers can sometimes supply 'good' products. Let's call it ghost selling and it goes like this, using a specific example: On a given day a product on Amazon might be selling at a lower than usual price. Let's say £20. The eBay seller then puts this item up for £24. When they get an order they actually order from Amazon but get it delivered straight to the consumer. Even once fees are concerned it's a decent profit margin for doing very little. So, back to bearings. At 20thou undersize can they really be genuine NTN? Were they 'white box'?

It is indeed very hard to find any general adhesive which can withstand the gradual 'unfolding' effect on return edges and especially where the base is metal.. Trim Fix Adhesive (e.g. https://www.justkampers.com/trim-fix-adhesive-500ml-high-temperature-resistant.html) is popular and pretty good but only up to a point. I've taken to doing one of two things to cope with the difficult situations of which GT6 centre trim is an example: • Where it wil be unseen, to use Self Adhesive Foil Tape (e.g. Wickes) to secure folded edges in addition to the glue • To affix folds and returns with sparing application of T EURO T3020 PU adhesive (similar to Tigerseal). Cures slowly so needs clamping for several hours but once set is immovable. Not, though, at all suitable as a general trim adhesive; Only to secure the 'difficult ' bits.

+++ for Warrior (or other sikilar brands) PU coated mechamics gloves. Just over 50p per pair bought in bulk (e.g. pack 24). Readily washable and re-wearable several times over.

Most perplexing. For myself, given the conundrm as is, I might proceed as follows • Take a presumptively good relay and prove it off the vehicle (i.e with w1 and w2 across a battery its operating click can be either heard of felt ,then any handy dummy load, such as side light bulb, in circuit with C1/C2 to switch on and off). Not so much an electrical test as a sanity check! • Then (on the car) hot-wire the solenoid with two wires direct from battery positive to C1 and W1. Then with YG disconnected drop C2 to earth. If solenoid operates the reconnect YP and test again. If all now operable it does suggest the fault is upstream of the solenoid. I am on tenterhooks to know the final diagnosis of this!

There's opportunity here to do a hot-wire test as a diagnostic procedure. i.e. disconnect the present wire to the pos on the coil and replace with a fly lead directly from battery positive. Turn over engine and observe sparks at end of king lead down to earth. Desirable outcome is clear, consistent sparks three times per engine revolution. If a hotwire test gives an improved situation then that would indicate deficiency in the forward feed to the coil the pathway being (AFAIK) brown to ignition switch, white to back of fuse No.1, white from back of fuse No.1 to coil. Investigation of this pathway would include inspection of any pre-insultated spade terminals which, unless artfully fitted, are a common source of malconnection. P.S. Not forgetting to disconnect fly lead once test done.

Be not defeated! Puts me in mind of when my Mk3 went back together: It took three days of solid work to determine non-starting/poor running issues and the factors were all simple but not obvious to first inspection. Hopefully some local hands-on help will be available: But in the meantime might it be possible to provide something of a précis of the history of the engine an its ancillaries? For example; before the current round of work was it a 'known runner'? Which components have been renewed/refurbished/replaced or newly added? Based upon what you've mentioned previously two matters seem to be particular suspect areas, sparking and fuelling. • Carburettors: Is it still the case the fuel is flooding from the throat of the carburettor(s) on cranking, one or both? If so, this is a matter to fix before anything else and will necessitate some disassembly to (most likely) clean, or replace, the needle valves. If Strombergs (presumably CD150 in thsis case) are saturated in this way then, just because of that, starting and maintaining idle will be very difficult. • Sparking: There might well be something to be said for reinstalling the points and setting the electromic unit aside for now. At least while troubleshooting points elimate some of the uncertainties associted with electronic units. I've had brand new electronic units in a partial failure condition; producing sparks but erractic, weak and at the wrong time. A rough and ready check for the condition of a coil is to measures resistance across the pos and neg terminals which should be approx 3 ohm for a non-ballasted system and from the HT contact to pos which should be in thousands of ohms (e.g 5000). Worth a try with some points?

The feed to the hazard flash unit is unswitched, fused, via the purple wire which picks up from C2 on the horn relay. The feed to the direction flasher is fused, switched (ignition switch) via a green wire which picks up from the back of the voltage stabiliser. But it does not go directly to the flasher unit: The green wire goes to terminal 8 on the hazard flasher switch, the pathway is passed through the switch to terminal 7 from which a Light Green/Slate wire goes to the direction flasher unit. From the DRU there is feed forward to the column direction switch which then sends the feed to off, left or right depending on selection. Thus one candidate for the pattern of symptoms described is faulty direction switch. It can have dirty or decayed contacts, or contacts that arc and get hot. A diagnostic test is the find the relevant wires in the bundle under the steering column and with a jumper lead join Light Green/Slate on to GreenRed then GreenWhite. If all the direction flashers work then that strongly implicates the direction column switch. But poor forward or earth pathway is consistent with what you describe. That the right hand side indicators work with one flasher unit but not another could be as follows. For the two pin (vane type) flasher unit a certain level of current is needed to heat up and therefore make/break the circuit. The two units could just vary slightly with one being slightly more sensitive than the other in a situation where current is marginal. Poor pathway at the rear lights such is such a common Spitfire/GT6 problem that it's always worth exploring even just for exclusion. Factors can be • bulb poor (worn or oxidised contacts) • contacts on bulb holder oxidised, weak or making poor contact• Poor contact between the 'teeth' on the bulb holder and the body of the light unit • Earth stud on the rear light unit broken (many are) so earth floating free without an alternative attachment being made. We must not overlook the front indiator bulb: this can be in a poor state much as the back. A remote possibility may be the night dimming relay (if your vehicle has one). But this would be the last thing to explore due to its inacessible location (tucked up behind the left rear wing).

Ditto above but perhaps to add front sill end closing panels (706422/3): Depends on the extent of the corrosion, but quite a possibility. During disassembly it may be advantageous to pay particular heed to the relationship between the floor pan, inner sill, sill stiffener and outer sill at the lower edge as below.

An interesting exercise to pick through the many photgraphs and speculate about whether the balance of factors favours a buyer's price of £18k. Or whether the expectation should be more conservative. I'm curious about the attachment of the wheels: I've never had other than standard wheels so is (what appears to be) a chamfered nut into a non-chamfered hole a reasonable arrangement? I've no intention of buying the car, so the question is out of curiousity. Any views?

These items ZKC1550, so-called 'Parking Device', are very scarce. They were always fragile and the plastic case was never strong enough to resist the force of the internal spring clip. Most broke. Only possibility I can think of is SpitfireGraveyard or regular searching on eBay. Even then the best that might be achieved is something that can be glued back together for appearances sake. Even in the event of finding an operable one (or two) they only work with original seat belts. Replacement belts very likely have a different 'tongue' which will not, in any case, insert into the device. Not good prospects, I'm afraid, but they always were a fairly useless bit of frippery!

Autosparks good for a wide range of colours and also AutoElectricalSupplies (autoelectricsupplies.co.uk).

It's a little while since I've done one but, as I recall, there's no easy route: With the column and its supports in situ, I don't think there's a line of approach to get the two little nuts (No10 unf?) on to the studs in the reverse of the escutcheon. But, and working from memory, If the upper 'H' support bracket is relieved (two lower hex nuts/screws and two upper special Allen head screws) that gives enough wiggle room to proceed without having to remove the facia. In order to mobilise the H-support it might be necessary to remove the glove box - not sure about that.

Thank you for all the ideas. To have to remove and disassemble the heater for only for the sake of one fan speed seems quite a degree of effort: But given the car is largely unmodified I'd like to try and keep originality, or at least authenticity, where possible. I've been given an MGF fan resistor pack (image below). This gives 1.3Ω, 2.0Ω or 3.5Ω depending on which connections are chosen. Looks like it might be possible to unsolder it and use the relevant coils soldered in place inside the Spit's heater box. Seems logical but is there any potential flaw in this plan....?

Spitfire 1500: It's only a little matter but the heater fan only works on 'fast'. Everything else is fine but not a sausage where the half-speed fan is concerned. An no continuity on the relevant wire coming out of the heater box. So it seems a reasonable assumption that the resistor has failed. But what is a suitable replacement? As I recall the resistor is about 2 - 2.5ohms and the motor (when static) is about 2 ohms: So that seems quiet a bit of wattage to be dumped as heat. Any suggestions on what could be used as a replacement would be much appreciated. TIA.

Aha! I hope I'm right in asumming that, in essence, the problem is that the push rod is too long. If the new MC came fitted with a push rod then it may be the wrong length for this particular application. The likely solution is to fit the push rod from the former unit if it is still to hand. Under the rubber boot is a circlip which, on removal, allows the push rod to be removed/replaced and this does not inolve interfering with any of the internals of MC. There is nothing exceptional here and some sellers make spefific mention of the fact that the push rods are 'generic' and may need to be adapted. In the event of previous rod not being available then adjustable push rods for Girling 0.625 units are widely available, but not that cheap. Cutting and rewelding can be done but, given the forces exerted, such welding should be of an exacting standard.