4drmatt asked “Great read Good to see the car being used too. when you go on your long trips do you take a lot of tools/spares with you? The thought of me driving long distances in my car when it’s on the road scares me “ I knew there were a couple of bits and bobs in the boot but knew it wasn’t excessive, however I couldn’t exactly remember…
I had a look at the short-term section of the “to do list” whiteboard. This was from the start of the year and I’ve crossed more off than is left – see it’s not just random stuff that I do Having put the nice clean carb back on the engine, I couldn’t help noticing how grotty the rocker cover was. As it was coming off anyway to do the valve…
Right, well, erm … with some help from graham I worked out why the engine wasn’t firing It turns out that the float height was set bang on, but when I finally re-assembled everything I put the float in upside down. Easily done as it’s not readily apparent which way is up, but it meant that the little tab that’s normally pointing in towards the needle valve was actually pointing…
Woohoo Got the dash back in, all the panels screwed back on and the car hoovered up and everything still works OK, everything, that is, apart from the ammeter on the top left, which isn’t even wired in. Having driven the car around for a few days with the new dash, though, it’s absolutely no loss that it’s not working as it’s the one gauge that is always impossible to…
As the sun was shining nice and bright this morning I decided to take the car in to work. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not that it never goes out in the rain – more that I can’t be bothered juggling the cars on the drive to get it out the garage whilst getting soaked through before I’ve even had my morning cuppa Get to work and there’s the…
Turns out that the “missing” adapter isn’t readily available, so I dropped a note to Carl (who sells on eBay as capri_bits2) to see if he had one knocking about, and as luck would have it he had a couple still on their engines in the yard The old electrical pressure sender’s on the top (and needs a 24mm spanner to undo) and the pipe adapter’s on the bottom (but…
Now, don’t all die of shock, but I’ve gone and spent some money on the refurb. A quick trip to Ultra Leds has bagged me some “mini light tower” LEDs for the dash illumination. They’re actually a small cluster of 9 LEDs on a wedge base for all round illumination, as opposed to the limited head-on range of a single LED. What the heck, it’s an experiment They’re actually slightly…
Continuing with the bargain basement theme of this dash refurb, I picked up a pile of old dash fascias quite some time ago on the off-chance that one of them would be useful … Unfortunately, they were all scrap – some had been hacked about to fit newer radios in, some were just knackered all round and one was mostly alright, but had been sprayed white at some point in…
With the house to myself today, I moved inside to work on the kitchen table in the warmth for once. For anyone who’s ever thought that the only difference between a 4-cylinder (left) and a V6 (right) tachometer was the dial face and maybe a resistor or something round the back, prepare to be surprised… The inner workings of these things is fascinating – a blend of bi-metallic springs, resistors,…
You’re all correct and better illumination’s been part of the plan all along. It actually turns out that there was only one working bulb on the old set of clocks, so no wonder I thought it was dark anyway After robbing Peter to pay Paul and moving bulbs about, I finally had a full working set. The dash illumination ones are at 9, 11, 1 and 3 o’clock behind little…
This evening I had a spare hour, so I spent some time soldering the brass connectors from the 14-point multiplug onto the car loom. The best thing I can say about my soldering is that it’s secure, if a little workmanlike Luckily it’s out of sight behind the dashboard, and when you slot the doofers into the multiplug it all looks quite good I then moved into the engine bay…
After a week off from mucking about with the car, living the high life of a long weekend away in France, one’s mind naturally wanders to what the next job is going to be… The current dash has a number of faults – primarily that there’s no trip counter (so I don’t know how far it is since the last refill), but also because the gauges are vague (and don’t…
This week’s little jaunt is a trip across the hills to Yorkshire, for Andy Ellis’ meet at Scotch Corner. 215 miles there and back. Why is it that most of my journeys start with the bonnet up? It’s daft … it started fine in the garage, I drove it out, I switched it off whilst Selina went to get a “spare” jumper and when she got back I turned the…
In celebration of it being “National Alloy Wheel and Brake Shoe Day” in Croatia yesterday, I thought it only fitting to get my arse in gear, get out to the garage and get the wheels finished up and onto the car If you recall, the old tyres on the steel wheels are 165/80/13s and the new ones are 205/60/13s. The difference in the width of the rubber can be seen…
“What a difference a day makes Twenty-four little hours Brought the sun and the flowers Where there used to be rain” Dinah Washington sang that back in 1959 and it came on the radio this afternoon whilst I was out in the garage. Of course, technically speaking, the second line should have gone something like “fourty-five and a quarter little hours” to be totally accurate, but I was willing to…