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Waynebaby

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Everything posted by Waynebaby

  1. John, As Colin says, I think that it's quite normal to find yourself with a random selection of bits left over from the remote linkage rebuild kit. My understanding is that the kit is designed to cover a number of applications and so you will find you don't need everything that comes in the bag. Regarding the clip which holds down the smaller spring, I found the hard way that the seating of this is critical to the longevity of the repair. If it comes out of the groove it allows the small but powerful spring to ping up and wreak havoc with the nylon dished washer (the one which appears to be manufactured from plasticised rice-paper) as well as letting the ball at the bottom of the lever to slide upwards. When this happens you're back to square one with gear selection. If you're not happy with what you have at the moment then it might be worth finding a suitable spring-washer for peace of mind. I'm afraid I don't know what size to suggest. Wayne
  2. Roger, Your tip has sorted my brake pedal travel. I've had a similar problem to Dave since fitting refurbished calipers which no amount of bleeding would resolve. 24 hours with the brake pedal held down as you suggest has restored the pedal feel. Many thanks. Wayne
  3. I really struggled to get my diff off and under those circumstances I was very glad I had more than just a trolley jack to balance it on. The rear mounts just didn't want to come out of the chassis and it took a lot of heaving and hammering before it finally let go. The new diff was a doddle though and I can see how I could have managed that with something much less chunky than my transmission-jack.
  4. I agree with your thinking. At the moment I've replaced the failed nut with a new one and treated it as "dry" with a torque setting of 80lbf ft. (i.e. the top end of the specified range but closest to what the other studs may be subjected to) The rest I've left alone for now as I'm weighing up the options. At the moment I've got 13 o.o.14 head nuts which are probably over tightened on an engine which has run sweetly and without any head gasket leaks in this state for over four thousand miles. If I start de-tensioning all the studs am I going to end up with a gasket leak I wonder? If I do provoke a leak then it's head off time and facing the possibility of a block issue which will need addressing before I can refit a new gasket. At the moment I'm tempted to let sleeping nuts lie until the next engine rebuild.
  5. A quick trawl on the internet shows that the reduction in torque values when using lube is an inexact science because of all the variables involved, but seems to suggest a reduction in the range of 25-40%. I re-torqued my head nuts after 500 miles to the maximum specified for a Mk3 GT6 (80lbf ft). It seems that I should have been aiming for somewhere between 48 and 60lbf ft.
  6. Adrian, Don't make my mistake, which was to check the battery voltage without it being under an electrical load. Even a sick battery may well show 12V when nothing is being asked of it. Put the headlights on and leave it a few minutes. If the voltage across the terminals after this time is much less than 12V then the battery is due for replacement. Wayne
  7. Having learned this week that the use of assembly lube on threads can lead to inadvertent over-torquing of fasteners it's got me wondering if we are systematically over tightening various components on our cars by using copper grease? I'd bet that most of us will slap this on all those nice shiny new suspension bolts before we tighten them up as per the manual. I wonder if there is a rule of thumb somewhere about how much to reduce a torque setting when using lube? On the subject of metallurgy, when I worked in the nuclear industry copper grease was banned because it was found to encourage inter-granular corrosion on stainless components. Probably not quite so critical on a 1973 GT6! Wayne
  8. Adrian, It might be as simple as the battery being at the end of it's life. I've swapped a solenoid before now only to discover that the fault lay with a zombie battery. Wayne
  9. Thanks for all the replies. I can’t remember now why I equated up rated studs with a higher torque setting. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time! I’ll get some fresh nuts/washers and reduce things back to spec without the ARP gunge. Fingers crossed that the head gasket doesn’t object too much.
  10. Thanks for the reply Clive. I had a feeling I may have been trying to be too clever using the ARP lube!
  11. Hi All, I've attached a photo showing one of my cylinder head studs and ~1/3 of the nut that used to be screwed onto it. This particular nut, which decided to drop to pieces this week whilst the car was stood minding it's own business on axle stands, is the second stud nut to fail like this since I fitted them 3 years and roughly 4000 miles ago. The nuts, and their associated studs are described as "up-rated" by a well known supplier whose name rhymes with a walking frame for the elderly. As they're "up-rated" I've increased the torque on the studs to 80 lbf ft (using a calibrated wrench) from the standard 65-70 lbf ft specified in the WSM. The only other thing I've done differently is to use ARP fastener assembly lube on the threads and contact faces, as this is supposed to assist in getting an accurate torque value. Has anybody else experienced similar problems? Is it likely that my ~18% higher torque setting is causing my "up-rated" nuts that much stress that they give up the ghost like this? Wayne
  12. I'm with Colin on just tightening the nuts down until the rubber bush starts to distort. One lesson I learned when fitting new springs was not to tighten down the top nuts until the shocker is back on the car or else the distorted bushes stop the top of the unit passing through the top hole in the turret. There's a thread of mine on here from 25 Oct 2016 which has a picture and a couple of other learning points on this job. Wayne
  13. As I understand it, the Monarch is above the law. The Queen doesn’t have nor need a driving licence (it is her highway) but Phil the Greek should face the full weight of the Road Traffic Act like the rest of us plebs.
  14. Hi All, I thought I'd share my expensive lesson in not making assumptions when adjusting the operating lever on a Type-D overdrive solenoid. My last solenoid died an overheated smelly death in a very short space of time, despite me setting the operating lever travel using a 3/16" rod as shown in the attached picture. Being too lazy to dig out my ammeter, I'd assumed that the adjustment was correct only to discover after a few miles of O/D operation that this wasn't the case. Yesterday I adjusted a replacement solenoid using the rod as before but this time double-checked with an ammeter. The current drawn by the solenoid was a constant 19A rather than the ~2A maintenance current which is drawn when the plunger is fully home and depresses the micro-switch. It took another turn on the adjustment nut before the switch was consistently closing. A clear case of check twice, change once! Wayne
  15. Thanks for that Colin/Doug. A great help as usual. Wayne
  16. Hi, I'm hoping to do the same as Doug's brother and put some H4 male plugs into the headlamp wiring to match the female sockets in the kit. Does anybody know the orientation of the Main Beam and Dip Beam terminals in the existing socket on the back of the bulb? Imagining that the photo below is of the headlamp socket, I think that the terminal at 3 o'clock links to the black earth cable in the headlamp loom, but don't know which of the other two is the Dip (blue and red) and which is the Main (blue and white). Once I know those I can wire up the new plugs accordingly without disturbing the headlamps themselves. I know I could remove the headlamp to look, but I'm being lazy! If anybody knows, I'd be grateful Wayne
  17. Thanks for the replies gents. I'll definitely check that the housing faces are true. The housing I use is second hand and has obviously had a hard life. The filters are practically brand new (just one season of use) and the air pipes go down to the radiator cowl, although judging by the pattern of dirt on the filters I think most air is coming in through the rectangular slot at the bottom of the housing. I don't remember a particularly bad diesel Doug, but since I live on Teesside the air quality is always a bit iffy. They don't call people from Middlesbrough "Smoggies" for nothing! Wayne
  18. Hi All, I took off the air filter housing on my GT6, squinted down the intake of the front carb and saw the manky air valve you see in the attached photo. The rear carb is just as dirty. The car is running standard club shop filters in a standard housing with all the necessary gaskets. I'm guessing that this isn't normal and wonder if I've either got faulty filters (unlikely I think) or the gaskets sealing the filters to the inside walls of the housing are passing. Has anybody else seen this problem? Wayne
  19. Paul, I've often fancied a pit in my garage. but because one of the garage walls is also a gable wall of the house I'd have to position it so far away from that wall to meet the building regs that it isn't practical. I haven't looked into it for a while, but I think the issue with cable walls and pits is making sure you don't undermine the foundations of the house! Not a problem if you're dealing with a stand alone garage. Wayne.
  20. Hi All, If anybody who is not blessed with a pit or a hoist is considering changing their differential on their own with the car on axle stands I can thoroughly recommend the Sealey TJ150E transmission jack to help you avoid hernias and come out of the end of the job with all fingers intact. The jack made the lowering of the differential today very drama free and the biggest problem was when the two bushes at the rear of the diff wouldn't part company from the chassis no matter how much I pushed, shoved, hammered or swore. In the end a quick squirt with silicone lubricant spray overcame the "stiction" and the diff came out as nature intended under the influence of gravity. It's not that cheap (£105 off the internet or £50 quid more from Machine Mart) but I reckon that by the time the diff is back in it should have paid for itself in labour costs. Wayne
  21. The oil also seems to go in more easily if you jack the front wheels up in the air to take the weight off the trunnion.
  22. I'd second what Pete says about using both the WSM and the Haynes manual. I also find a parts catalogue (available from the club shop) invaluable at showing the order in which components should be assembled, as opposed to how the last person who took it apart thought looked OK. It'll also provide you with correct part numbers to help you cross-reference with the offerings provided by our various spares suppliers. Wayne
  23. A colleague of mine, having drained the oil from his BMW, set off to buy some more oil - in the BMW! Needless to say, he didn’t reach the shop. Hard to believe he was head of maintenance planning at the nuclear power station.
  24. I had the same problem too, most noticeably between third and fourth gear. One thing that helped was making sure that the nut and bolt connecting the two sections of the remote operating shaft weren't over tightened. They just need to be tightened enough to take up play in the joint, rather than hardened down, which can squeeze the connecting fork ends towards each other. I think that a little bit of "slop" is needed to off set expansion in this joint when things get hot.
  25. Finding the drain orifice from the main cooling gallery can be very trying. The hole is situated between 11 o’clock and 1 o’clock up behind the where the drain plug screws in. Blindly poking with a bit of bent wire in the hope of hitting the drain hole is the best you can manage I’m afraid. I only got mine clear when I took the head off and found it from the other end (having first sucked out a cupful of crud!)
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