Grim

Haha! I'm away the rest of the week, so figured it's best in advance.

to go off on a tangent, you should not lube your clutch cable. It attracts dirt, which gets tracked in, scratches the liner, and makes it very stiff. Replace the cable, use a dust boot on the gearbox end to stop any dirt getting to the cable, and route it avoiding the exhaust. I used to bust a clutch cable every couple of years until i put that boot on! Andy

The south yorksish meet for November will be at: Red Lion Inn, Todwick, South Yorkshire Usual time of 7:30 on weds the 4th Andy

Well, to repeat Rob's post (#7): You must not drive the vehicle on the road if it fails the test, even if the MOT hasn’t run out, except to: have the failed defects fixed a pre-arranged MOT test appointment You can be fined up to £2,500, be banned from driving and get 3 penalty points for driving a vehicle in a dangerous condition. https://www.gov.uk/getting-an-mot/after-the-test I think it's unfair, but if that is the guidance the government is giving out, that is what we have to work to.

Steve, i suspect your tps is not at fault. Disconnect it, and try to start the car. A pinto efi with a tps disconnected will still run. Download the injection troubleshooter from nw.rhocar.org (or search my post history) to try and find the fault. What are your symptoms? I hav spent many hours fault finding the pinto efi!

A good compression test or leak down test wont eliminate a faulty oil control ring will it? Perhaps something to check out after you've eliminated everything else.

what sort of deflection can you get in the belt, when moving it with your fingers?

I'd be more worried about them applying an emissions update and strangling the performance and increasing fuel consumption. Anyone know what the update is yet?

sure he didn't say 1988? ie when the donor was made? if so that would tie in. If the big points are covered, ie the v5 says it's a robin hood, then i wouldn't worry overly, it's probably a dvla typo.

So, i thought i'd post an update to this thread, as there's nothing more annoying when trying to search for solutions to problems, and finding more questions! I checked over the oil control solenoid and cam sensor wiring, and all proved ok. No crap or such like in the solenoids. Decided to bite the bullet and buy the locking kit (£50) a cam belt kit (£50), vvt pulley (£70) and bolt (£2.50). The car was overdue a cam belt anyway, and changing the vct pulley at the same time was only an hour's extra work. However the job took me 16 hours in total over 1 afternoon and 4 evenings as i had to remove pretty much everything that wasn't the engine from the engine bay. Cleared the fault code (P000A), test drive went badly, reconnected the vct solenoid, cleared new code, and it's sorted. Did a few more jobs, including a new driveshaft and coil, now it just needs an MOT by the end of the month! Andy

The south yorksish meet for October will be at: Red Lion Inn, Todwick, South Yorkshire Usual time of 7:30 on weds the 7th Andy

same earth?

less fuel is just less throttle in a diesel, there must be more to it, like only running egrs in test mode etc. I'd love to know the details!

it's a late model 2b wishbone chassis with cobra hoops. not sure what years they offered the cobra hoops, but someone will!

gearstick will need to move up(?) on its pivot, just tap gently until you've got a gate on reverse again

i think the standard ones took off 2.5° of camber, which i thought too much. I think peter bell made me some for 1.5°, which did the job.

Coolant feed for heater. Route to heater if fitted, or to same sized fitting on the water pump if no heater. Don't block off as it allows water circulation whilst the engine is warming up, and should prevent hot spots. fuel pipe feed connects to fuel rail (opposite end to the regulator), and a return line to the tank from the regulator.

if there's movement between flanges, the bolts aren't tight enough. Fully threaded screws should be fine in this situation. If you need to rely on a bolt shank to stop movement of the flange, you have a greater issue. You will still get failure of the bolts by fatigue, sooner or later.

I wouldn't, 3.6 or 3.9 are best unless you have a torque monster.

Don't use any if it doesn't leak, it's an electrical connection as it earths through the block!

that doesn't sound... conventional! is the nylon running on the shank of the bolt, not the threaded section?

I tried to resist commenting, but sometimes I can't help myself I saw that thread, but saw no evidence for a HAZ related issue. Possible mechanisms for a HAZ related failure could be "cold cracking" where the HAZ gets heat treated by the welding process and forms very hard martensite. This can lead to cracking, generally quite quickly after welding, so i'd suspect a failure soon after it was made. Only happens with certain types of alloyed and carbon steels, not the steel i'd expect it was made from. Alternatively, the tube could be heavily cold drawn (cold worked), and the welding process softens it around the weld. If the stresses were high enough in normal use, it could then fail by fatigue, but I feel it unlikely as the actual strength loss by annealing in the HAZ would be small in a mild steel. There has obviously not been any testing to prove this, and I don't suspect many people would let me chop up their wishbones! The wishbone has a huge stress concentration factor at the weld, due to the shape of it. The failure will almost always occur at the weld, but that does not mean the weld is at fault per se. I'd go along with fatigue failure due to excessive stiffness / misalignment of the bush / crush tube too short etc, unless there's any evidence to show otherwise. Andy

i don't know what size yours are but if these fit i can reccommend: http://www.wisbechengineering.com/shop/4576331221/urethane-bushes-qty-1-50/6179004

well, i don't want to be swimming around in circles do I?

got two yellow armbands through (for 2 people), and a letter saying i've paid for one day, despite paying for two. Any help?