cliff.b

Sticking pistons in my new calipers caused exactly this issue on my Spitfire. I removed the pads one at a time, depressed the pedal to push the pistons further out then levered them back as far as they would go, repeating this several times until they moved freely. After this the noise stopped. Some time later I had the same problem on the other side and did the same thing, which worked again.

So if I leaked fuel under the car recently when I brimmed the tank, does this mean I have a breather pipe fitted?

Next meet here is Sunday 25th

What revs are you seeing at 55mph? My 1500 Spit without overdrive would be showing less than 3000 and hardly working at that point. Should be accelerating well to 80+

I generally use Tesco Momentum in my 1500 Spit and happily running 14deg BTDC at tickover

👍

Never actually been in there but it's only a few miles from us so probably should make the effort. Looks like this car meet is a regular on the last Sunday morning of the month. There was outside catering offering teas, coffees, bacon rolls etc.

Nice Jensen and a MK1 Zephyr 6 with triple SUs on an Aquaplane manifold. Exhaust manifold looked custom made.

Car meet this morning. First time I have attended. Good selection of cars including several Triumphs 👍

Just to follow up on this issue, I have recently started experiencing one of the original problems again where initially it feels like the brakes are barely working but on pressing harder they grab too hard, sometimes to the point of locking the driver's side front wheel. Today I decided to look at the n/s caliper, removed one pad and pushed the pedal to move that piston. But it took a great deal of effort to move it and then to push it back in again. After trying several times it gradually freed up so I put the pad back in and repeated for the other piston, which moved easily right away. Reassembled and road tested, found the brakes are now fine, so appears to be further sticking piston issues in the OEM calipers I fitted last year.

Mine was in the car park. Couldn't commit to being there all day.

Ok, thanks 👍

While in LIDL's I noticed they are selling these from Thursday. Been meaning to have a go at this welding lark but is something like this actually worth buying? If not, what should I be looking at for entry level? https://www.lidl.co.uk/p/diy-tools/parkside-inverter-welder/p53632

I'm sure I will use them in the garage 🤔

I have advanced the ignition a bit and it did seem to make the car a livelier. Maybe I will try a little more. Cars not sluggish by any means but, as you say, feel it shouldn't need revving so much and have been wondering if the exhaust fitted may not be optimised for mid range power.

Yes, good points. I have a dial gauge so could probably work out cam lift and duration, or at least decide if it appears to be standard or not.

That's what I thought, but my car comes alive around 5000RPM and still pulling strongly at 5500 which is the highest I have taken it. I would prefer not to have to rev it that high when overtaking etc. The thing I don't know is if the engine is standard inside. I suppose if it could have been tuned to some extent but how can you know without stripping it 🤔

On a related issue, my Spit 1500 has a standard exhaust manifold but all the rest is non standard and about 2" diameter. The silencer has two outlets and appears to have been tampered with. Based on the volume level, I suspect some of the contents have been removed. The car is running well and has plenty of power at high revs but not as much pull in the mid range as I would like. Wondering if the exhaust system could be having some impact on this?

Returned home today and it became steadily hotter as we moved inland. Supposed to be high 30s and felt it. For anyone that is interested in such things, initially my temp gauge mostly stayed just below normal, where it normally does but then started rising a fraction when going up gradients. If it got just past normal my electric fans, which are still fitted as well as the mechanical one, cut in for a while. The electrics are on a thermostat in the lower hose and currently set to 85C and I have never seen them come on while moving since the mech fan was reinstated. Once they came on the temp went no higher so it does seem that the setup is effective.

The joys of open top motoring 🙂

The journey wasn't completely uneventful. Driving along at about 60 I felt a whack on the head and assumed something had fallen off a tree. Reaching up my cap felt all sticky so I removed it and found it was covered in bird cr*p. It was nowhere else. Is this a bird with a sense of humour, and incredibly good aim 🤔 I'm just glad I was wearing the cap lol

We made it 👍. A fairly relaxed 110 mile drive over about 2.5 hours.

So I can avoid asking Mrs Cliff what she weighs then 🙄

Away to the coast for a few days later this morning and Mrs Cliff has agreed to go in the Spit, but still wants to take all the stuff she would have taken in one of the other cars. Does anyone know what the maximum payload is 🤔

I used a large pair of stilsons today, only thing I had that was big enough.