Peter Truman

Yep you can only be 10 or100 times out! still prefer foot and inch’s but don’t use yards anymore! our fuel consumption is litres per 100klm now that’s confusing the higher the number the worse it is!

Or as my English Mother in Law used to say when she came to Aus to visit "What's that in REAL money". In the 70's & 80's I used to get my Eng in Chief totally confused when switching pressure units from psi, Mts head of water, & kpa, (some of our older mech field recording units were still psi) or flow lps, Ml/day & Gl/a, it worked he always said YES!

I found an cheapie easie bleed several years ago it has a plastic bottle with a magnet attached which I attach to the wheel arch ie higher than the bleed nipple works a treat not a 1 man job but tidy and I don’t knock the jar over but the plastic bottle could be larger

Remember to put the bleed jar higher than the bleed nipple so the air bubbles travel uphill!

Thanks for that a great day you had and enjoyed by everyone even the weather came to the party!

I’ll look thro my old doc’s I know I have an article somewhere, but have you looked thro the clubs tech archives from old courier mags a wealth of knowledge there.

Never had that problem I must have talked nicely to them! Even my first car a Goggo T300 (1963) ran great under those damp conditions. I had more trouble with a 3 yr old XJ6 here in the early 80’s coming home from up country and it ran like a dog when I got home opened the bonnet flash’s everywhere from the HT leads a new set and it ran great for around 10 years.

Driving across the York Moors on a foggy misty night the car always ran great

The catch’s on the bulkhead can also wear with a Nick in the lip a little bit of weld build up and trimming easily sorts it. our country unmade roads that are just graded cause the catch’s to undo very quickly hence the permanent fix “bonnet locks”

As above I ground out the ID of the felt seal metal retaining ring to 38.5mm ie larger than the 36mm boss/annulus tapped it up to the rear of the back bearing. I then assembled the hub onto the stub axle tightened it up backed it off a couple of flats, hub spun ok, then undid it all to ensure the rear bearing still span ok and the felt seal retaining ring hadn't collapsed on it, all ok rear bearing held in place and running on felt washer, ALL HAPPY! Rebuilt Type 14 caliper & pads fitted and all centered to the rotar ok, then new SS and carbon fiber effect poly coated braided hoses fitted, now just to check all bolts are tight and bleed them BLO*DY brakes, then drive the car to my daughters, 350Klm up the coast.

14in gives a far greater availability of tyre makes & choices, as 13in not a preferred size by manufacturers these days

I've been thinking overnight about the issue of the felt seal metal retaining ring fouling the upright stub boss/annulus ie it won't fit over it, so I'll machine it down to fit over ie say 38mm ID vs 36mm OD for the boss/annulus, then fit that now separate metal ring into the hub to restrain the rear bearing, with the clearance the inner rebated flat of the ring shouldn't be distorted back onto the bearing which stopped the bearing turning, a job for later today or tomorro! Only issue then is that the felt seal will be running on it's retaining ring rather than the boss/annulus, I can live with that! I'll order 2ea new GHS110 and GHS146 from Rimmers as spares or later permanent fix's, and if they are too tight re ID I'll get them enlarged to clear the boss/annulus 36mmOD, the felt can be cut down re thickness provided it's done before oiling, did that on the Sprint, NEVER had any of these issues with the Vitesse, which has a separate caliper mounting bracket.

When I lived in England in the 60’s and had convertibles Sprite and last a Herald CV I lived on the York Moors and driving home late at night in the cold with the roof down heater on full blast was absolutely fantastic! Try it in a snow storm drive fast and the snow blows over the cab space even better no traffic lights to stop at and get wet and straight into the stables, only time I got wet was shutting the stable doors and running across the Court yard

I've just spent a fruitless day trying to fit Type 14 Calipers onto the daughter Mk2 Spitfire. After dismantling the caliper, front hub, and backplate from the front vertical upright assembly to bend the backplate ends so the backplate cleared the bigger Type 14 caliper I started the reassembly removing the old incorrect mechanical seal between the old rear hub bearing and the vertical upright at the stub axle to be able to fit the correct new felt seals GHS146. The new felt seal had been oiled well the compressed over 24hrs to get excess oil out it wouldn't fit over the raised annulus the stub axle goes through & is part of the vertical link, nearly fitted but an oversized socket had to be pushed in to get the felt ID larger than the annulus 36mm OD, finally achieving a clearance and after cleaning the front and rear bearings and greasing them I assembled the hub onto on the stub axle and tightened the hub up then slackened off to rotate it. Then I offered up the caliper to the vertical upright the caliper centre rotar groove wouldn't clear the rotar fouling the outer face of the caliper groove, so I removed the caliper, hub and rotar, the felt hub backing steel disc had collapsed ie pushed in onto the inner bearing virtually seizing the bearing, it appears the inner dia of the felt seal backing plate/washer is also 36mm fouling the vertical upright stub axle mounting annulus, I think there are multiple issues the felt seal doesn't clear the upright annulus, and maybe the rear bearing inner race protrudes too proud of the hub so when the felt seal is compressed it's steel backing is pushed backwards seizing the inner bearing race. My temporary solution was to cut the felt seal off it's steel backing fit the thinner felt seal over the vertical upright annulus and then fit the hub on sans the locating felt seal backing washer/plate ie now the felt seal runs up to or abuts the inner bearing race, NOT ideal. The bearings I have fitted are Japanese of good quality BUT are they a match for the originals re overall width of the race?? Oh in this arrangement tightening the hub up on the stub axle it won't lock up it still runs free! The old mechanical ie rubber lip seal I removed showed signs of its outer metal case rubbing on the upright annulus! The car has done over 25k klm like this! One solution re the caliper fitting is to file off the rear of the caliper mounting lugs so the caliper can move forward, but that's a bridge too far, Oh the Type 14 caliper has exactly the same offset and distance from mounting to the rotar groove as the removed Type 12's. Any ideas anyone

I fitted bonnet catch locks stops the catch’s coming undone Hey it’s a solution and means I don’t have to affect bonnet alignment or have to force the catch’s down!

If I remember one car maker in their glove box manual advised to change the position of the air filter intake by rotating it summer and winter forwards summer sideways winter. What should we here where our winters are more like your summers and the summers are very hot?

Just cut 1/4 inch off the top thread off the plastic reservoir body and it just touches the bonnet a little with the cap on. So ok a little more sanding off the top reservoir body say 1/8 in minus and it’ll be ok shouldn’t affect the res usable capacity. there’s still just enough external thread for the cap to hold.

Just fitted the new Coventry Master cylinder and transferred the push rod over to the new master cylinder, now as suggested elsewhere the reservoir just sticks up a little high, I don't like the recommended solution of raising the bonnet rubber cones, it must affect the bonnet door bulkhead alignment, o I'll have to think about that? I could remove the plastic reservoir and mount it remotely and use a SS braided hose between the remote reservoir and the Mast cylinder body. As long as the reservoir is higher than the master body is there an issue if the suction hose drops lower than the master cylinder inlet?

I've Helicoiled them in the past to get a good thread, recently on a Spit 1500 twin exhaust manifold.

I'm in the process of upgrading my daughters Mk2 Spitfire from Type 12 brake calipers to Type 14, which require a master Cylinder of larger capacity. Today I got a new Mk3 Brake Master Cylinder (Coventry GMC224), which came with a very long pushrod (150mm), I have several other push rods in my spares box, 63mm long, 88mm long, the existing Mk2 push rod & also an adjustable rod. The current Mk2 small reservoir master cylinder fitted appears to be around 95mm from the face of the master cylinder mounting flange to the centre of the clevis pin, the actual length of the push rod to get this distance hasn't been measured yet, but can anyone confirm what this measurement from the mounting flange to the clevis pin should be, &/or the actual push rod length used in the Mk3 Spit Master Cylinder?

Nice car, in great condition, like the blue colour, even the sun visors are in great shape, well done. I enjoyed your MGf saga, I nearly brought one when they were new gee dodged that bullet. Unusual light tan interior with the light blue body colour, what colour hood has it

I replaced the corroded front connection with a brass barbed nipple of the same thread, re the rear alloy fitting and banjo bolt I've removed 2 successfully on Vitesse's and GT6 using MAPP heat and penetrating oil but it was done over time and carefully with copious amount of copperease on reassembly, must try to undo the Vitesse's banjo bolt and regrease it's been there 20years, what's my chances? Sometime ago I think I remember on eBay someone selling brass versions of the banjo bolt.

I always assumed that the Mk3 hood frame was specific so it fitted the curvature of the Mk3 side window vs the squared top corner of the MkIV's window. I'll check in the garage later when it's daylight as I have all the bits to convert a Mk2 removable soft top to a fitted Mk3 with over centre securing catch's that I've picked up over the eons to upgrade the daughters Mk2, but the different inner B post panels have beaten me up to now!

Modern E fuels go off quickly a friend with a fleet of classics has trouble with 2 particular cars a Mini Cooper and a Jag Mk2 only needs a couple of months lay up The Stag and TR4 aren’t as bad my Vitesse is ok for around 3 months the Spit also ok with a longer layup Modern fuels are SH@T!

From my experience both anti burst and hood catch’s come up quite frequently on eBay . Re hood catch’s they were used on the early Spitfire Mk3 too but later in the model run replaced with the lever style