kevin the chicken

Looks pretty similar to ours, all you new caravan owners will be able to chat to my wife at Hollowell, she can talk caravans until the cows come homel. She is talking about going out in ours in November! She seems to forget that she spends most of the winter with eight layers of clothing on chucking wood in the woodburner as fast as I can cut it. We bought a double garage to go on ours but it did come with a small workshop size awning that will fit on the other side as well.

Cheques in the post, second biggest lie in the world! We are bringing cakes, my wife says she will make a big cream gateaux so we will need some helpers to clear it up as the cream goes off quickly. Kevin

Best have a sniff of your dipstick in case the petrol is diluting your oil. Do you have pressure regulator fitted? Too much pressure can cause flooding, leaks and overflows. My pump is quite noisy all of the time but if you have noticed a change then you are right to be suspicious. If you can smell petrol but not see it then you are going to have to take it apart again. Bummer but not too bad if youve done it before.

I've been keeping an eye out on ebay for some bike carbs to put on my Sylva Leader pinto engine to replace the downdraught carb that pokes out through a hole in the bonnet. The carbs that seem to be recommended are the ZX9R ones but what I need to know is do I need to look out for a particular variant model or year wise. I don't want to get a bargain that is no use! They seem to come up quite regularly and vary in price anywhere from 80 to 140 quid so I am wary of buying the wrong ones. Regards Kevin

Might not be able to get there until saturday afternoon but don't hold the trailer competition before then as the wife wants to throw her hat in the ring for that. Just wanted to get that in writing before her wine wears off. I hope dogs are allowed at this meetng because ours wants to check all your pockets for custard creams. I have got a flat bed trailer but we will be towing the caravan. A box trailer would be best as it is easier to see but a big flatbed is easier to control. I have a 3/4 ton single axle sankey trailer that goes behind my landrover, I generally have one token go at reversing it and then take it off and move it by hand as by the time it comes into view you have turned too far!

I looked at lots of cars on e-bay before I actually splashed out on something so one piece of information that I gleaned was that many bec were sold with hardly any miles on them, speaks volumes really. You don't see many of them being used as daily drivers. Not enough low down torque makes slow speed driving hard work. Having said that I wouldn't mind one as an extra car for when the roads are clear of traffic (never around here) Kevin

Hi, I am thinking of converting a pinto engine in my latest toy (sylva leader) from a downdraft carb to sidedraught as the existing one causes problems with the bonnet, ie it sticks out through the top! I do like the weber DCOE's fitted on my Robin hood but they do go out of balance very quickly and require constant fiddling. Also to buy a set of webers or dellorto's would require a significant investment even wihout the manifold needed. This leads me to thinking about bike carbs as there seem to be plenty about and they seem to be cheaper. I know a lot of people swear by them and I always like to try something different, so what type should I be looking for and what should I expect to pay for them? Kevin

You want straw bales not hay. Hay is more expensive. You might be able to get some on a sale or return basis from a livery stables or local farmer. Most straw is baled in to Heston bales ( the big ones) which weigh about half a ton each. These are much easier to transport on a lorry but not much good for what you want. The small ones would probably be a couple of quid each. Straw lecture over

Hi, I have just added an Incomplete Pinto engined Sylva Leader to my stable as a result of a second chance offer on e-bay. It wasn't exactly local, needing a 670 mile round trip to pick it up from Cornwall but when I got it home and had a good look around it I decided that it was a bargain at the price I paid even including a hundred quids worth of diesel. It is mostly there, runs ok but the front brakes are completely missing along with the exhaust. The exhaust won't be a problem but the brakes have me puzzled. I think the front axle is vauxhall and the brakes probably came from a viva or magnum but without having one to look at I don't know. The last but one owner removed the calipers before he sold the car as they were expensive Wilwood ones, the car being used for hill-climbing or sprints. Does anybody know what I should measure up or look for if I decide to replace them with aftermarket calipers? Or is anybody familiar with the Sylva cars or vauxhalls? I did say as a joke that I would buy a car for the wife so she could come to shows with me and we could take both children, just had to make sure that it wasn't too powerful so she didn't burn me off! She likes it which is good but has already decided she wants round headlights! Kevin

Check that the float heights are all the same, if they are then that rules out float heights as the other carb is ok. Change the float valves if the floats are ok. They can look ok but a tiny amount of scoring or dirt can cause them to stick. I had exactly the same problem with my webers as somebody had decided that the car would perform much better with the floats set higher. Wrong

I did quite a bit of reading after I had my Redtop Series 7 put on the rolling road and it does seem that horsepower figures can vary quite a lot depending on various factors. I wasn't really too bothered about horsepower readout, being more concerned that the damn thing held together but I thought it might have been a bit higher than 151bhp. I did notice the chap readjusting the straps a couple of times and spraying some jollop on the rollers because of wheel slip/spin. Also I hadn't thought to inflate the tyres up to what they would run at on a normal car, I have been running them at 18psi and this can apparently make the difference of several horsepower due to the flex of the rubber. So next time I'll put some more air in and see what difference it makes. As the previous post says smiles are more important than horsepower and it gives me plenty of those.

My five year old son is dead chuffed that the new prince was named after him. Not sure I'll tell him about george the cat though

Walk softly but carry a big stick OR Revenge is a dish best served cold.

If you use the plastic and paper ones you can just throw them away. It's worth changing them as a matter of routine yearly even if you don't have problems. They are really cheap and I buy them in packs of ten and use them on everything from lawnmowers to tractors and cars. Use the larger ones if you can and then if they become partially clogged they should still supply enough fuel until changed.

I am in exactly the same situation as you.does the sender have enough space to achieve full travel?if so it could well be a mismatch. Car builder solutions sell a small piece of electrickery which allows the two devices to be tuned to match each other.it costs about thirty quid if I remember correctly. I may resort to this if it continues to be a problem. I am going to see which sender devoted recommend first.

Made the first trip out in my car to the show at Kimbolton last sunday and had a good day. It was good to meet some other members and have a nose over their cars. There were supposed to be 800 classic and sports cars at this show and I could well believe it although it was so hot I didn't feel like staying out in the sun all day to look at them all. It was cool when my daughter and I set off and I took it nice and steady as the reliability of the car was untried. We got there ok and this gave me the confidence to treat it less gently on the way home even though it was hot, keeping it at a steady 70 mph on the A14 back to Huntingdon with no problems and none whilst in traffic either. This is an opportunity for me to say thanks to all those who have helped me over the last year or so both with advice on the forums and physical help, I would have probably given up by now without it. Hopefully I should be able to get to some more events now.

Had some similar problems with them myself. If you don't chase them up repeatedly yourself you don't know whats going on. It doesn't take much effort to send an e-mail to say that something is going to be delayed. I don't use them unless there is no alternative, these days they need to look to their laurels when a lot of the competitors get stuff out to you the next working day. Car Builder Solutions are very good in this respect. Having said that the last thing I ordered from GBS only took about four days.

Believe me a caravan revolutionises camping. You should hear me when I get stuck behind one though, My wife the family expert on caravans reckons you've done ok there. We are currently trying to buy one off ebay, its weird how many people are selling at the height of summer and the weather is good too. I reckon we should wait till autumn when they should be cheaper when people are keen to get rid of them rather than pay for a winter of storage. SWMBO does not agree, she wants an extra berth so her greyhound can have his own bed. I just agree and think I may be able to sneak in another kit car if she gets her caravan.

If you want to use something similar for simplicity, the one that kitspares supply for the zero was nearly the same size as the one I took out. I am presuming of course that it was a cortina type, it certainly looked similar to the ones listed on ebay except for the top and bottom tanks. The outlet and inlet were in the right place so there was mimimal plumbing required. I had to change the bottom support as the depth was different but used the same mounting holes. They supply them in capped or capless depending on the type of system you are running. The basic measurements are on their website but if you need any more let me know

Bit behind the times here but I just noticed that Car Builder Solutions sell rivet in panels in five different sizes.

The VIN number on my series 7 is on the top of the chassis on the nearside. Its not a proper plate but is engraved on to the flat surface where the bottom of the bonnet locates. 666! very apt, the number of the beast.

Brake dragging slightly? You saying that dipping the clutch caused temperature to drop made me think of a problem I had once with a Discovery.

Everybody I have spoken to says not to touch the cold start levers as they are very prone to leaking. Mine starts with three sharp prods of the throttle to squirt some fuel in now that it has the correct idle jets in it. My floats were way out leading to flooding with fuel pouring out until I reset them to the correct levels. God only knows why people piddle about with things they don't understand.

Volume is more important than pressure, the duck is right all the carbs need is about 3psi. I am running an electric pump with my twin 45's and did a lot of research before putting in a regulator to make sure that is all they get. Too much pressure and you run the risk of leaks and flooding which was obvious on my car with all the staining.