FERRINO

Morning all – Just a quick one hopefully. My pinto engine came without an oil pressure sensor in the block side (previous owner used the setup for his new motor from memory). Anyway – I bought a new sensor from GSF on Ebay ages ago – bog standard for the 82-93 Sierra:- http://www.ebay.co.u...=item565ec1ef0b I went to fit it last night seeing as the engine is out of the car again at the moment. First of all I was surprised to not find a seal of any kind with the new switch - is this normal? Anyway, I started screwing it in by hand and it got very tight almost straight away. So I started gently winding it in with a spanner. It’s in about half way down the thread now but is getting a bit tighter to turn the spanner than I’m comfortable with to be honest. So I’ve stopped and just thought I’d ask a stupid question before risking snapping it in the block or something. Is this normal for a pinto pressure switch? Is it tight because it’s ‘sealing itself’ using the thread as it goes hence the lack of seal? Do I just keep forcing it until it stops – or is it designed to only sit halfway down the thread? Apologies for the silly question – but I’d rather stop and ask than risk damaging anything. Here is a pic of it’s current state in the block:- Any advice gratefully appreciated! Cheers Tony

The Chrome strut inside the coil spring is actually the centre strut from the original Sierra front suspension McPhearson strut. It moved up and down with the suspension in the Sierra – but in this application it’s just bolted solidly between the frame members and the wheel hub actually sildes up and down that (there are some Phospher Bronze bushes inside the modified hub that allow it to do this). Cheers Tony

No worries at all Zach - it was great to meet you and I'm glad we got it sorted in the end. The trouble now is that after drooling all over your lovely Zero all night - I now hate my giant ugly Sliding Pillar 2B even more and want to get rid of it and buy a proper one !

Hi Zach, if you can't find anyone in Cov, I have an engine hoist but am in Rugby. Give me a shout if you can't find anyone closer. Cheers Tony

I've got the same as Ian above - but the finish on mine seems ok. Quite happy with them:-

Sorry Bob, I didn't spot your post - It looks like you were spot on (as usual )

Awesome! Many thanks Rob - you're a superstar . The ones I sold had Wagner on them too, so I'll bet they are exactly the same. Also - thanks Agent Zed, if you could confirm yours also have the markings that would be a great help cheers. As I say, I've actually sold the old chrome headlight units and it's the buyer that's querying the markings. My news ones are the H4 type. Cheers again everyone

Thanks for the reply Richard, These are the ones that came with the 2B Sliding Pillar kit surely (at least that's what I assumed)? RHE wouldn't supply non IVA'able (or SVA as it probably would have been back then) headlights in the kit would they? This is what I can't understand. If I still had the lights I probably would wire them up and check the beam pattern as you suggest - I might have to suggest that to the guy and see what he says?

I can see where he means now from zooming up the picture. 'drive' is written vertically higher up and 'left' is written vertically as well but below and offset to the side. Is this normal?:-

Last week I sold the new headlights that came in the box with my part built 2B. Here is the Ebay link:- http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=221491218060&ssPageName=ADME:X:AAQ:GB:1123 The chap who bought them has just received them and said that they have the following embossed on them (I'm assuming on the lense somewhere?):- "Drive left" He's asking if this means they are for a Left hand drive car? I genuinely don't know the answer and also genuinely never spotted the marking? The only reason I sold them on is because I like the look of the smaller black headlight better otherwise I would have probably used them myself. Any advice gratefully appreciated. Cheers Tony

Wow - those seats look superb! Very nice indeed

Oh dear - Really sorry to hear about the redundancy Paul - that sucks. No probs with the arches though, I'll get them back down form the loft (where I put them last night lol). Give me a shout when you want to come down. I go on holiday for a week on Saturday so it will either have to be before then - or after the holiday if that suits yourself better? Just let me know anyway and we can sort it out no probs. Cheers Tony

Sorry again about that Paul. I'm quite happy to sell them to you (I'm never going to use them I don't think) - it's really just the posting that's the issue. If you can organize the Rhocar pony express or know anybody that's passing through the midlands on the way to Leeds anytime soon I'm more than happy to help get them to you if you still wanted them? Cheers Tony

Hi - Sorry about the delay. I've actually ended the arches on Ebay tonight I'm afraid. Somebody from Essex offered me £43 for them just before I did it, but I just can't be bothered with the grief of finding a great load of packing tape and a giant box for that sort of money so I'm gonna keep them. In reply to your question though - the arches just seem to sit too low on the 2B. If you position them to look right on the side (height wise) - you can get your head in the gap between the top of the wheel and the arch. If you position the arch to look right against the wheel - the arch just looks far too low and silly compared to the rest of the car layout. Cheers Tony

I've been having a clear out in the garage recently and found this old distributor in the box of spares which came with the kit. I've absolutely no idea why a CVH type distributor was in the box as the car came with a 1.6 pinto in? Very odd, but it's no use whatsoever to me. Looked on Ebay and these only go for £10-15 (if they sell at all) so it's not worth putting up for sale tbh. So if it's any use to anyone on here I'll gladly send it for the price of postage (£5) It has the ignition module and lead on the side - The cap is in good nick and the rotor arm too. Cheers Tony

HI Jez - Sorry, but I totally forgot to reply to this! Cheers for the info about your setup. I'm in exactly the same boat as your self regarding being confused by the blurb in the manual about this. It definitely says that the timing is fully controlled by the EEC IV unit and that earthing the red/blue wires will have no effect - so why have the octane plug fitted in the loom for this model then? I've had some more info from Derek last week about this octane plug actually. He said that when he had running problems at the roadside (which he eventually traced back to a dodgy earth for the TFI module) - the AA man came and started making adjustments to the octane adjuster to try and get it running again. So that explains why there is a strange 'possibly used at some point' crimp on my loom. So I'm going to snip the blue wire with it's crimp off as it does seem that these octane plugs are fairly pointless. I'll make sure the yellow wire is earthed when it comes time to start up - but am going to see what effect and how it runs if I remove it once everything's up and running. Thanks again for everybody's help with this!

Looks great Ryan - keep up the good work!

Yeah I can do, if you message me your email address - I'll send you some more tomorrow morning as I'm just off to bed now. I'm actually now having to sell those black rear wings (due to the huge bill for the new clutch on the daily driver):- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221477320329?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649#ht_373wt_1093

I feel your pain on this one Steve! My Daily driver is an 04 plate cosmetically scruffy Ka with 75000 on the clock and dents all over it. The clutch decided to destroy itself last Friday so had to have it done this week. I was gutted as the clutch cost £550 to replace and the car is probably worth less than that . I'm in the same boat as you though - can't afford to replace it for another 18 months or so - so you have to keep it going Sorry I can't help you with your original problem though (although I got a rust patch as an advisory last year so may be interested in any helpful replies you get to this). Cheers Tony

Hi Brokey – I know you have a Sub-K but it’s virtually the same frame as the 2B by the looks of it and I’m going through the exact same modification at the moment. I don’t particularly like the ‘tapered in’ look of the rear of the 2B either and have been busy trying all sorts of different things to change it and make it more Locost/Haynes Roadster’y (which with hindsight is what I should have bought to build in the first place lol). The main problem is obviously that the rear frame tubes ‘taper’ backwards and you want a flat surface to mount the fibreglass wings to. The solution I found was to buy a Haynes roadster fibreglass rear panel (the Roadster is one of the widest rear tubs I could find:- The roadster panel was still 70mm too short though so I’ve had to cut it and extend (there is 1” square aluminium tube inside the rear panel top and btm now to bolt it back together firmly which you can see in the last few photos at the bottom of the page). The gap will be covered by some aluminium sheet formed to match and sprayed the same colour:- I then bought some black Locost rear arches and clamped them to the ‘now flat’ sides. I felt though that the Locost rear arches sit just a little bit too low and don’t look right when you look at the car really:- After that a pair of cheap orange fibreglass arches off a GBS Zero appeared on Ebay – so I bought them to try. They seemed to be a pretty good fit and I might be going with these:- My part-built kit came with a brand new yellow rear tub off a Tiger cat E1 which was waaaaaayyyyy too narrow and didn’t fit at all – so I’m just experimenting with a cut/shut version of that bonded to the roadster rear panel at the mo. I like it because it covers the stupid ugly swing arm protrusion for the Sierra rear suspension and means I can also have nice ‘flat’ side aluminium panels when the time comes. But if that doesn’t work out or look right then I’ll be using the Zero arches I think. I don’t know if this is any help at all or not to you? Just thought I’d share it in case it is though. Cheers Tony

Thanks for the advice Nigel - much appreciated. I didn't think the Red or Blue wires would be necessary for this particular engine (1989 2.0 efi) as the car came set up ready to run on standard unleaded from the factory as far as I'm aware? It was just the fact the both yellow and blue ring crimps look like they had been earthed down recently as the crimp is shiney where the washers would have dug in. If the crimps had just been hanging around the engine bay unused I would expect to see them both fairly dull or dirty. That was why I just wanted to double check with other 2.0efi runners before taping them up. Cheers again Tony

Evening all - (Quick bit of background on my question). I bought Derek's 2.0efi engine/electrics package about a year ago for my 2B build which I know was working fine when he removed it. I'm finally starting to get to the wiring stage of the build so have been going through the process of laying the supplied injection/ignition loom in and wire checking so I know exactly what goes where and how it all works. I'm pretty much on top of it and have it 99% sussed now but I have a query which hopefully you guys that run the same 2.0efi setup can answer straight away? On the 3 wire octane plug, the red wire has been cut and trimmed right back and is not used. The yellow wire has a fairly large crimp connector added to it and the blue wire has a smaller crimp connector added. Both these connectors look 'used' as if they were bolted down. From the small amount of info on the net about the octane plug - it seems that earthing the blue wire will mean the ignition is retarded 2 degrees and earthing the yellow increases the idle rpm by 60-75 rpm or so. My question is - Is this right for a bog standard 2.0 sohc efi setup? What is everybody else running with regards to the octane plug? The Sierra manual shows the yellow wire earthed with a note saying "earth link manual gearbox only" Any advice would be gratefully appreciated. Cheers Tony

No pictures - or is it just my phone/pc playing up?

Not at all - glad they have helped It would be great if you could post up some pics of yours too when its done. Good luck with it and look forward to seeing the result! Cheers Tony

Both seats now in place - need to get some ally sheet now to do the straight tunnel sides and new rear panel:-