Longboarder

Spent a couple of hours in my local scrappy today and came away with a Nissan Cherry fan in a metal shroud for a fiver. 12.5" diameter and can be adjusted to 7.5cm deep. The frame is 34cm x 34cm. Seems a better size than the 214 fan. Perfect! He also had capri clocks and even an original RS2000 set and a pile of lucas wiper motors with park switches on. Nigel

For the price of a decent fuel pump you could get a complete 2L pinto engine and keep the build much simpler. I have a mate with a decent 2L sierra scrapper that he cant give away. Drive it home today with no mot but 2 months tax for free before he has to pay to get it scrapped! (Its in Plymouth) Nigel

I had the same problem. I gave a very light smear of grease in the housing, plugged them all in and filled it with silicon sealant. After 48 hours it was set and secure. Cheep cheep cheep! Nigel

On the motor sounds like you are missing the parkswitch/ connection box. The blue is earth, red and yellow the feeds for the two speeds. Have a look here minispares in the electrical bits. A new motor is £38 complete with switch and a switch on page two of electrics is £12. Nigel

Sounds like whatever wire you've got connected to terminal 53-C on the column switch is going straight to earth. You have two wires at the washer. They should come from 53-C and W on the column switch. Identify both ends of each wire. Neither should earth if disconected at both ends. I suspect one does and thats the faulty one. Isolate, trace, bypass, whatever to fix. Nigel

Schematic of wiper circuit with intermittent. Ford and Lucas numbers on the motor. Remember the column switch earth. The variable controller for the intermittent also has a grey/yellow supply and earth wired to the dash light circuit. Column switch can be marked 31B1 and 31B2 or B1 and B2 depending on age. Nigel

Brian, two possible problems. One is a fault in the column switch not connecting its terminals 53 and 31B1 (B1) in the park position. You can test this continuity across the switch with a bulb and battery or a meter. The other is a break in the brown/white wire that runs from 31B1 on the intermittent relay to 31B1 (B1) on the column switch. (The relay 31B1 also has a Brown/white running to the motor 31B which is working or it wouldn't park on intermittent action). Once again you can test continuity/ see if you have this wire and if not fit one! (the column switch connection labelled 31B1 to 85 and B1 after 85 is the same connection. The Haynes pics don't show the relay labels changing from 31B1 to B1 but they might) Nigel

O.K. Be honest. How many readers are thinking ' Yeah, I'd buy a used Focus from Andy. No Problem.' Maybe this is an age thing but possibly not as Simon is just a young whippersnapper. For my twopennyworth ( £.s.d.) I would go the non synthetic route and 'run it in'. Nigel

My local central heating engineers were happy to sell 6mm and 8mm copper pipe. Nigel

Taffy, Dave Andrews article describes setting positive castor but he calls it negative. Increasing King Pin Inclination will give more self-centering effect so try setting as much negative camber as you dare for the test that doesn't make the front of the car look too wierd. Try 5 degrees. That will help but give tyre wear problems long term. If you still can't get enough self centering effect take the car to someone who can measure castor and see what the figure is. If its only 1-2 degrees positive or worse negative then you are looking at having new top wishbones made. But that would be pretty unusual. I don't suppose its possible to fit the top wishbones either way up which might alter the castor? Nigel

What wiper motor are you using, Paul? Nigel

Spot on. It is the dim dip return to relay no 34 in the Haynes diagram and you wire it as if it was the earth return from the main and dip beam bulbs. That relay directs it straight to earth for full power or applies a balancing reverse feed current to reduce power on dim dip. The sidelamp has a proper brown wire that goes direct to earth. Important to ensure the blue/green 'earth' and the brown do not have a common link in the bulb holder. Nigel

You could drill, tap and fit a 3-4 mm allen grub screw to secure into the joint casing. I'm off out to do that in a minute after I've refixed the nearside sidescreen which came adrift at speed as I passed a corsa on the way back from stoneleigh. Bent it in half but just managed to grab it while it was hanging on a pop stud. Fun driving at *** with a screen clutched in my left hand. Not! Otherwise 400 miles problem free. Nigel

Not at all. First paragraph was supposed to be waffle to cover my red face at doing a total U turn. The only change in context is that piddy will have a different number plate, possibly different coloured wings and nose and a few other minor details. No apology needed. It's me with the change of mind. Nigel

If I were Tony Blair I would at this point and suggest that my previous statment had been wrongly interpreted , taken out of context and perhaps could do with a little clarification. It did of course mean that I was fully supportive of Joels idea to fit a dashboard hazzard warning switch and I feel if you carefully reread my statement you will of course understand that the confusion may have arisen missinterpreting the no to mean no whereas of course it meant yes as I'm sure now becomes clear. Ho Hum. There are aftermarket switches offered. Vehicle Wiring products do one for about £20. That suggests its not that hard a job. Presumably they supply instructions/circuit diagram with it. Can I unmake the mountain and turn it back into a molehill? I was trying to use the sierra circuit and it should be possible just to splice into the indicator circuits with a switch that disconnects them and resupplies and joins them. Sorry to have been so negative previously. Still wouldn't try it in a Hood where you can't get the scuttle off. Every time I change my wiring it requires me to be head first down one of the footwells with my 'see very close glasses' on and I'm sure one day I'm gonna burst something vital getting out again! Try it. Worst that can happen is a £20 switch ends up in the spares box. Nigel

Try this one. Delux DCOE Nigel

Sorry, brain fade! I should have said voltage regulator to earth not gauge to earth. As Big Jim rightly points out the gauge earths through the sender. Well not all. Just some of it! Nigel

If you're confident its electrical and not the sender you need to check voltage supply to the instrument voltage regulator, no less than 12.6 at tickover and 14 ish above this rpm. Output from volt regulator stable (at 10v I think) at 0-3000rpm and the same at the guage. Check and perhaps fit temporary good wires, batt to volt reg, sensor to gauge and guage to earth. Then see if its OK. The only reason I can think of for normal readings when driving but drop at idle is faulty volt reg or bad connection probably between volt reg and the gauge itself causing low stabilised volts reaching the gauge at low rpm. (But this is probably all b*ll**ks) Nigel

DCOE linkages Try this site for pics of linkages. There are a number of relevant pages. Nigel

Yes, should be on the wheels. Usualy with standard load of fuel and passengers and drive it onto a flat surface without jerky braking etc so the suspension is in the position it would be if you were on a smooth road at 50, wheels strait ahead of course. However with double wishbone susp the castor angle doesnt change much over the small normal range of movement but is of course affected by nose up or down attitude of the car. Post two above was a comprimise setup cos I can't bribe anytwo people to sit still in the car for long enough to take measurements. Nigel

Hi piddy, did you actualy put in a different engine or is it the same one. If different do you know how it went before it got to you. Does your fuel guage do wierd things when the temp guage is acting up?- Possible panel earthing or voltage regulator problem. You need to decide if this is an overheating problem or a wrong temp gauge reading problem. Try running the car on the drive for 20 minutes or so with the fan on and see if it boils. Plus see if there is variation in the readings with engine revs first at 1000 then at 2000. Nigel

Had a go at a gauge. Produce a wood (brown) or metal frame with a pivot at the top about 20inches off the ground. Make a moving arm about 15inches long and mount on the pivot. Tie a plumbob to the pivot. Make scale. Use Tangent tables to work out scale (tan angle =opp/adj) and mark up. You should measure castor with the vehicle on all four wheels, on the flat and with passengers. Cant see how to do that but if you jack up gently on the lower wishbone ( wood to protect and as far out as poss) you can remove wheel,caliper and disc and lower again to ride height. Line up base fore and aft. You can then line up front of moving arm with centres of top and bottom ball joints and read off angle. Still thinking but any suggestions? Nigel

The heater hose on the exhaust manifold side of the engine is the return hose and must come from the upper connection of the two on the heater matrix or the heater will not be self bleeding. It is worth running the engine with the rad cap off after filling . You will see bubbles or the water level drop as the heater bleeds air. Keep topping up. Also make sure that you haven't done anything to make the engine run hot like retarding the ignition. Nigel

I thought the sender was a rheostat and is supplied from position 6 on the instrument multiplug which is the wire from the fuel gauge. If you are using the Ford plug to stick in the top of the sender unit the wire is brown/black or maybe blue/black in the 2.o'clock position viewed from behind so you have the right one. The Bn/Gn and Bn/R were wires to the fuel computer. I have 9 volts at the sender end of the Bn/Bk which comes from the gauge output. (I wouldn't take this reading as correct as my voltage stabiliser doesn't!). I guess you must have a bad connection to or from the gauge or a duff gauge if there are no volts setting off from the gauge. Nigel

Below a schematic of the Lucas wiper motor. The column switch has just been switched off and the wiper is powered to move to the park position via the Bk/V through 4, then via the park switch to 2. Back up the Bn/W to the column switch at B1 which links to 53 when col sw off thus back down the Gn to 5 and runs the motor till the cam breaks the park switch and the motor stops. (Acknowledgement to Dan Masters, Vintage Triumph Register, Michigan for switch and motor schematic, Wiper Motor .)