Darren Groves

Plenty of cable protruding, so don't think that's the issue. Darren

I borrowed and fitted a friends angle drive from his restoration project and exactly the same thing....2 dodgy angle drives? I have access to a third one, but taking out the gearbox tunnel is getting a bit tedious now..... Darren

So tunnel out, drill direct on the end of the speedo cable and the needle is pretty steady. Screw in the angle drive to the cable and drill onto the angle drive and it starts to get erratic, not as much as in a real driving situation but pretty sure that's the cause. New ones used to have a reputation for poor quality, that still the case?

Hi Gary, No pics attached to your post. The latest car values are here: http://www.tssc.org.uk/tssc/uploaded_files/2017%20Insurance%20Car%20Values.pdf If you get the valuation done at one of the TSSC events, you can certainly have a bit more influence over what the valuation comes out at. Darren

http://www.speedycables.com/ should also be able to help.

Travelling up from Devon for a long weekend in Surrey, will be there im the Herald for a bit on the Saturday.

Hi GT6M, The Graph isn't the best laid out as the BHP & Torque are set out a bit strange, but the guy that does it has earned a good reputation since starting up so I am pleased with what he's done and I can't argue with the way it runs and drives now. He could have spent more time on it, but we were both happy with were he got in the time. I'll see what the economy is like when I finally get my Speedo sorted/calibrated so it reads at least somewhere accurate, I can always go back for a fuel trimming session later on. The DFCO appears to be off at the moment, didn't even know it was there until you mentioned it so I can experiment with that soon. Darren

Will do!

Inner cable removed, cleaned up and lubricated with the graphite powder, all back together and it's just as bad. The speedo cable connection is a clip on type on the back of speedo itself, so I will take the gearbox tunnel off on Monday to make sure it's fully home on the angle drive. If that fails then I'll have to send the speedo back for them to test, it's under warranty. Darren

After doing around a 1000 miles since the EFI install, I have been pleased with how the car has been running but always thought it could be better. The new engine has been in a few weeks also, so with both my EFI tuning know how and time in short supply I decided to take it to a local Rolling Road to get set-up properly last week. I normally use Dave Baskervilles in Barnstaple, but always felt he didn't quite get it right so today I tried a local garage that have had a RR for about a year now. They were under strict instruction not to try and squeeze every last ounce out of the car, but get it just running nicely. Very pleased with how the car drove, without doubt the best it's been in my 19 years of ownership. The new engine has a Spitfire MK3 Camshaft, MKIV Cylinder Head, CR I didn't bother to calculate but the head measurements indicated it had never been skimmed and it only had a light skim to ensure it was flat, so just over 9.0:1 I guess. Bhp & Torque figures ended up at 74.1 & 81.7, so pretty happy with that. They done a few tweaks before putting it on the RR, the first run was came back at 60 & 73, so good improvements from how I'd got it set up. Darren

It's looking like this is fixed no recurrence in the 2 weeks since cleaning the solenoid connection, bypassing the Lucas Fusebox and changing the battery earth. Fingers crossed.

OK, will try some graphite powder. Thanks.

What Pete said, works every time.

Last I heard Mike wasn't accepting any gearboxes for rebuild for several months, whether that extends to Diffs I'm not sure,

So back in September last year I decided to send off my Speedo for calibration (it's a Spit 1500 speedo in a Herald) as I was getting fed up of trying to do the mental arithmetic every time I approached a different speed limit as it was over-reading by around 20%. It came back, I fitted it but the odometer and trip moved on 1 mile and then stopped, so it went straight back and was fixed with no bother and returned to me once again. When I first refitted it I drove around with the Sat Nav on for a couple of trips and the readings were pretty much spot on, all good I thought. Over the period in-between then and now the needle started to get a bit erratic at higher speeds and no longer seemed right. Out for a run yesterday and I needed the Sat Nav to get to where we were going so could check again and apart from the waggy needle, it was back to over-reading by around 20%. Now I have no idea how a speedo is calibrated, but is it possible for it to revert back to it's original settings? I have checked the 3 measurements I gave to the company to calibrate it first time round and they all came out the same. They've said to send it back and they'll check it, but just thought it a little odd.... Darren

I have the Crystal headlights with relays, significantly better that the standard halogen conversions. I'd rather see where I was going at night than worry about if they look original

I've had 2, one yesterday but that wasn't the right type and was a poor fit, this was on when I had the little blip today, I've now a virtually new 063 type (same as mine) temporarily fitted to see if that helps. I did clean up the main battery to body earth strap connections today, but may just replace it as they're little money.

I had another little episode of it earlier today, but all I noticed was the radio switch off, turned it back on and no presets so it must have lost both ignition & permanent live feeds momentarily, but I was doing around 50mph at the time so I didn't notice the engine cut as I guess the break in electrics was very short. I did take off all the connections on the solenoid, the twin spade connector on the live side that is secured by a bolt and shakeproof washer was a little loose, maybe that was an issue. Cleaned all the connections and tightened up and bypassed the fuse on the Lucas fuse box, so time will tell if any of that helps. Darren

Mine is not that old, I added it in a few years ago just as a convenient way to run power to various accessories. I don't need the glass fuses as all the circuits have blade fuses protecting them individually, so maybe I can loop a wire from one side to the other and bypass the fuse. I did think of the ignition switch and wiggled the key as I was driving but nothing happened. I would think if this is the problem it would be more like a disconnect in the ignition fed circuit rather than a complete loss of electrics? Thanks for the suggestions. Darren

Do you mean one of these? Then yes, I do use that to feed many the electrical circuits....might be worth a swap for something better. Darren

Occasionally (though twice today) my Herald just cuts out, I look down and the ignition lights are on but I'm coasting to a stop, on most occasions the car restarts fine and I carry on. This seems to have become more frequent since I switched to EFI, though my gut feeling tells me that's just a coincidence. I had something similar when I was running Megajolt & Carbs a couple of years ago, the starter seemed sluggish afterwards on those occasions, so I added an additional earth lead from the engine to where the battery earth connected to the body, this seemed to fix it that time round. Until a couple of weeks ago I had one of those dis-car-nect jobbies on the battery earth terminal and each time it happened the small bypass fuse blew. Thinking this might be the issues I removed it and went back to an earth lead direct to the body, but I have had the issue again today, so can't be that. One thing that does happen every time is that I lose all the presets on the radio, which says to me that there is a complete momentary loss of electrics rather than an ECU glitch or loss of power to the ECU, Pump Or Injectors etc. I have an alternative battery I can borrow for a while, so I will see if that helps. But before I start checking connections & wiring anyone else had something similar? Darren

I have always used a good quality sealant, and never had a leak.

Ok, you win! How did you manage that? Ben - Yes rings were gaped. Clive - No, I didn't get the block skimmed, just checked for flatness, but that could certainly be the reason for the failure between 1&2. This engine was troublesome from the off, partly because a well known Triumph supplier who sold me the Newman Camshaft gave me the wrong settings so it was running 5° out for some time. That aside, it run hot for a while when new then settled down, done a few compression check in it's first year as I was trying to fix what wasn't the smoothest idle (not knowing the camshaft was timed wrong) and they were all good, so the broken rings didn't happen in the first few thousand miles. Compression started to drop a couple of years ago, I noticed the crankcase pressure was high. Richard - I have spoken to FW Thornton's before when I was trying to source some NOS pistons for the engine that's just gone in. I always use a guy called GBH Spares down here in Devon, he holds shed loads of NOS engine parts and companies like Thornton's often go to him to get there stock. The new engine has County pistons in BUT the rings were swapped with a set that GBH Spares have made as they don't trust the County ones, so even some of the traders are aware of quality issues. I did also have the block skimmed this time and the cylinders lined so it could go back to standard pistons, and the Fast Road camshaft has gone and replaced with a MK3 Spitfire one, so hoping it'll be smoother and last a little longer....time will tell.

Block was rebored and new pistons & rings fitted, so no lip to do any damage.

Decided to strip down my 'old' engine, when I say old its probably not done 10k miles but has never been a 'happy' engine. In the last couple of years compression has been down and its suffered from excessive crankcase pressure, hence the reason for rebuilding my original engine. I never did like the fast road camshaft I put in it either. I took the head off and there were signs that the gasket had started to give way between cylinders 1 & 2, it did this a year ago. But when I took the pistons out, the top ring on each of them was broken, these were new County pistons and rings. Now I have read that County rings aren't great, but to have 4 break and the same ring on each piston seems odd. I guess it doesn't really matter why as the new engine is now in, but curious as to why it would happen.