Okay, first up the money shot, so you can see that it works, then I’ll circle back and set out how I got there To set the scene, that’s my bog-standard 2.0 Pinto with an Aldon Amethyst unit (resting on the heater bowl) effectively inserted between the distributor and the coil, running a user-definable ignition advance curve with vacuum advance. I’ll be completely upfront, it’s no Megajolt/Megasquirt/1-2-3/whatever, as it only does ignition advance based…
Among the pile of bits I’ve casually acquired over the years is this; a pair of Dellorto DHLA 40’s complete with trumpets, K&N filters, linkage and a Hiflow manifold – all for £151 from a fella about 20 miles away. If memory serves, it was one of those auctions where the seller listed it badly, with few photos, an end time in the early hours of the morning and seemingly…
When you’re sat next to your little girl’s bed in hospital, it’s 4am, you haven’t slept in days and there’s no more Jammie Dodgers left on the nurse’s station – the last thing you want is the banality of 24 hour telly. At times like these, you want distraction, you want warm comforting words, you want to know that the simple things in life work and that they can be…
One summer I was going out to the garage to find some humdrum household item or other, when I glanced through the mucky windows of the Capri and noticed something out of place, stuffed down the sides of the rear seat. Opened the door and was greeted with that unmistakeable stench of mouse piss Dug the car out from underneath a tonne of boxes, dropped it off the axle stands…
So I’m talking over a beer or two with a mate and he asks how come the car’s still up on bricks in the garage, on the basis that saying I’ve got no free time is silly because if I’ve got free time to have a beer then I’ve got free time to play with the car. Of course it’s never as easy as that, because free time at eleven…
The man from the Ministry … he say “yes” Advisories on the sills and the exhaust, but they’ve been advisories for at least the previous two MOTs and are on the to-do list, so don’t bother me. I think the issue with the handbrake is most likely simply the cable stretching (it’s probably still the 29 year old original) combined with the self-adjusters already being at the maximum travel of their…
Current status is that the MOT expired in October and it never got put in for a fresh one due to other distractions, so it’s sulking just a little at the minute. If that wasn’t the least of its’ problems, it got turfed out of the garage to make some storage room “just for a couple of weeks” … three months ago Purely for the sake of doing something, I ordered…
I took Dave’s advice and cleaned up the old gaskets (with the ever faithful Mr Muscle wipes ) and the mating faces on the box. The received wisdom appears to be that there’s only two types of gasket sealant worth using on gearboxes; either a) “that thick sticky black shit” or b) “anything with RTV in the name“. After trawling the local motorfactors, Halfords, B&Q and Wickes I was starting to…
Another day … another gearbox drop. Still, at least I managed it in an hour from start to finish this time, which is a new PB, as our Olympic athlete-types like to refer to these things. Well, it looks like it’s a case of mea culpa on two out of three leaks. The leaks on both sides at the back of the main gearbox casing are coming from underneath the top cover plate……
OK, time to get this car out of the garage and back onto the road. Thankfully it’s been like the rainy season up here for the last few weeks, so I don’t feel like I’ve missed out too much. First thing to deal with was the rear oil seal on the gearbox … I found out why it was leaking … … it was still in…
For the second weekend in a row, I’ve been “sent out to the shed” to “muck about with the car” Can’t complain Started off by cleaning up the starter motor … When you want to start the car, the solenoid (bottom left) pushes down on the spring & plunger (just above it), which pushes the cog on the starter (bottom right) forwards and into engagement with the ring gear on the…
Which numpty suggested I should change this gearbox? Oh, it was erm … me. I’ve lost count of how long I’ve spent doing the changeover, but about 80% of the time has been taken up with sorting out a revised crossmember. I started out with making a couple of arms from one inch angle iron to connect up to the chassis mounts. These things were works of art I tells…
Picked up a new clutch kit today, mainly because the fun and games getting the box back on for the trial-fit convinced me that I don’t want to be doing this all over again if the clutch goes for a burton in three months time. The other reason is that none of the local factors were readily able to get a release bearing on its own, whereas there’s one in the…
So that this doesn’t drag on for too long, I picked up a 5-speed propshaft from my local supplier (capri_bits2 on eBay) for a very modest sum. It’s not had the fine misting of oil over it for all its working life, like the old one, so it’s a bit grottier on the surface, but all the joints seem fine and have no play (that I can tell). The propshaft for…
Turns out I was approaching the problem from the wrong end. After consulting my array of vintage Capri manuals whilst partaking of a small sherry, it turns out that the spring clips in question were on the other end of the linkage rods. A few minutes later, after a bit of back and forth under the car then back into the cockpit, the linkage is out and discarded like the…