kevin the chicken

Needed some petrol for my chainsaw so I chucked a can in the back of the kit rather than walk there as I have a sore foot after dropping a small radiator on it. It was a beautiful sunny autumn day so you can guess what happened. Eighty five miles later I filled the can and the car up at the garage 400 yards from my house. Thats kit cars for you. It's gonna rain tomorrow, I'll chainsaw then.

Seems strange that it would overheat when there is air being forced through the radiator but not when there is no airflow. Is the temperature sender in the same place on the new engine, does it actually boil up? My engine in my 101FC land rover always ran with the gauge reading just off the red but it never ventured in there whatever I did with it. Presumably you have ditched the viscous fan in favour of an electric one. I guess the first thing you have to do is look at what has changed between the two installations and work from there.

Sounds good. I would come if not working. As soon as you decide on a date i will pencil it in so that I don't arrange anything else

You could fit an aero screen and Wear a helmet which is what some people do to get through the sva test. I presume this is what has been done to your car. That way you wouldn't have to worry about washers and wipers. Personally I found it windy enough as it is with a full screen so I would follow florins advice. My rhubarb seems to be a bit lack lustre this year so you are safe from me!

My wife had one and we liked it but once the first child came along we found the boot too small for the buggy. Used it to tow caravans lots of times and it pulled OK once you got going, just the pulling away from a standstill was a bit slow. Good choice, enjoy.

Are these tubular like the Robin Hood Ones? If they are it will be hard to bend them without creasing them. I have some replacement ones to fit as one of my original ones broke but I keep looking around as I can't help but think there must be a better idea.

I meet up with the east anglian kit car guys occasionally and they are a friendly bunch. I am in chatteris which is only an hour or so from you I guess. There are a few RHOCAR members around here perhaps we could try to organise some kind of meet next year if there is enough interest.

This is exactly what made my last engine fail. When I went to put the sump on the new one the dipstick didn't line up with the hole on the top of the windage plate. You could see the marks on the top where the dipstick had slid along it, always registering full because of the oil left on top. I just drilled and filed a new hole where the scratch marks were and now it works as it is supposed to. My new engine is much better so it wasn't all bad news.

I would avoid the series 7 as I am 6 foot and 84 kilos and find mine a snug fit. Comfortable when I am in but could be better. I have normal padded bucket seats which are good so I tend to put up with the slight lack of legroom. On a long journey I wear an old pair of carting boots which of all the things I've tried for comfort makes the most difference, enabling me to get my left foot under the clutch pedal for a stretch out. As Stuart has already said the tunnel is very narrow and my drivers seat is very slightly angled. Presumably intentionally but you never know what was in my cars builders mind. I think a different pedal box would make a lot of difference but I don't know if I could be bothered with that at the moment, maybe sometime in the future.

Are you 100 per cent sure the gauge is accurate? If the stat or the electronic gizmo aren't giving the correct temperature it seems a bit strange. Surely one of them should work properly. They should control the engine temperature and compensate for over cooling by closing off the flow. Or that's what I thought anyway. Years ago loads of people would blank off parts of their radiators in the winter.

Agree with the others we should have a club stand if possible. There's plenty of space with the clubs all placed up one end. Even if there's only three of us like today if we had a banner it would give us a bit of publicity. Good to meet new people today and I left when the majority of cars started moving and got home before the predicted rain.

I'm only going Sunday. Look out for me, tatty blue series 7. Two greyhounds and a Lurcher!

Tomorrow and Sunday by the river. Went a couple of years ago and although there weren't as many cars as I expected there were a lot of people due to it being free entry. Too late to get entry paperwork now but I am sure they would be pleased to see entries on the day. They didn't want to look at any paperwork on the way in anyway. Worth a look if you are local.

Just bought a couple of sump gaskets as mine is leaking and needs replacing. Supplied with the gaskets are some small washers which are to go inside the gasket to stop it being over compressed when the bolts are tightened. Does anybody else use these or do you just rely on torqueing them up correctly with a torque wrench as I have done previously

Just a quick nudge to those of you that tow their houses behind them on occasions especially as the end of season bash is coming up. We had an insurance renewal come through just before we had our annual holiday in Cornwall and my wife was inclined to leave it until we returned by which time it would have expired. I renewed it as it would have been just my luck if something happened on holiday. On the return journey the offside tyre burst on the M5 with the remains of the tyre damaging the side and underneath of the van. We had a good inflated spare and Jack but there was so much destroyed tyre underneath I couldn't get the jack underneath the van so had to call recovery out. Didn't worry too much as I knew I had insurance and we had stopped OK without any drama or injury. The tyres were about 4 years old with very little wear but the recovery chap said a common cause of delamination is flat spots from being left standing for long periods. Changed the others now too. Went for an insurance quote and the bill is going to be 2334 Quid! Was that a well spent 100 pound or Not?

Can't go back that far on my eBay purchases but if you email them telling them what setup you have they will get back to you straight away. It's one of the reasons I use them ,they know what they are talking about so I know I am going to end up with the correct part

Twin cable definitely. I use fastroadcars who sell loads of stuff on ebay. Been using them for the last five years for all sorts of carb pieces. They are quick to despatch and answer queries.

I find the sierra rear end works really well. It's the front that probably needs sorting first. Ditch that bloody great anti roll bar for a tie rod conversion and put some softer springs on if it's still got those 180lb lorry springs that came with the kit.

Sometimes just walking away and leaving it works wonders

Bent my sender arm to suit too, deadly accurate at half full, above that and I go out. On or below and I fill up. Not as good as a gauge that is accurate at all levels but a cheap and easy fix

It does go off quite quickly, I never like to leave it more than six months so I drain it in the winter and put fresh in for the summer. It seems to go off more quickly in the pipework in my car rather than in the tank even though my pipes are of good quality. I would definitely flush and put fresh in after that amount of time. If it has really gone off it will smell wrong when you crank it over.

I'll bow to your greater knowledge as I haven't actually built one and you have but a new build on a new chassis with used or reconditioned parts will require a test and result in a q plate won't it. Bit of a joke really as many people rebuild cars from chassis up reusing the original chassis. To me the issue would be the quality of the rebuild. I bet dvla would have even less idea of what is needed if asked. There is very little difference to me to rechassis a car from a new build apart from having the correct paperwork already. Correct for the old build that is. Thats my thinking. As Richy says get another car on the insurance, got to be easier

I get what you are saying but surely a new chassis should have its own unique number, you can't just transfer it from the old to the new. Of course nobody would know unless it was examined for some reason but if the chassis plate was noted to look unoriginal it would point to a ringer wouldn't It?

Sorry I can't come in to work today we had a power cut last night. And the rest of the town too.

You are having exactly the same problems I had. I can't remember if my old ones had any grub screws but you will probably need to carefully release the pressure on the nut by compressing the spring. The new ones do have grub screws. If you haven't got a suitable spanner for the nut you can buy an adjustable c ring spanner, assuming you have a notched nut or whatever it's called. Pity you are not closer of you could have borrowed mine. I had a hell of a job releasing the bottom of the coil over too a I couldn't get access to the bottom bolts. I ended up wedging a large screwdriver under it inside the crossmember so that I could unscrew the bolt and remove the whole assembly, the top ones were easy. I replaced the bolts anyway. For God's sake don't try to take it apart in situ a and e is very busy this time of year. I went for 120lb springs, it makes the front end much better especially coupled with the tie bar conversion. Dampertech is where I got my coilovers from, got the phone number if you want it.