megadodo

They are plenty of good waterproof connectors you can buy from CBS, or Autolec or any of the ones on ebay. Got to be better than a big hole in the side of your car! After all your not Rowan Atkinson, are you?

Okay, the gauge is supplied with 12 volts via the ignition and grounds via the sender which varies the resistance based on temperature. So if it swings all the way over when the ignition is on it is likely to be the wrong value resistor in sender, open circuit (easily checked by removing the wire from the sender) or a short in the sender wire. So, check the wire for grounding/short by removing the wire from the gauge and the sender and checking for a short or resistance to ground. If no fault in the wire then the sender needs swapping for a known good one or the dash is faulty (do you want to borrow my sierra dash or have you butchered the wiring for you dash?). HTH

"But the Sierra does have in in tank pre pump filter, its in the middle of the plastic swirl pot" No swirl pot in my sierra tank, I looked, and it was out of 2.0i. I could see nothing in the outlet pipe and I shone a torch into the sender hole to see! There was definitely no pre filter! "If you'd seen how many filters were inside a petrol pump, you'd know that the debris didn't come from the pump." As for the dust and dirt I can only think it must have got in between tank fitting and finishing all the initial plumbing, in hindsight that is perfectly possible given the way the wind can blow debris under my garage doors! Isn't hindsight wonderful? Still, once all my bits arrive, a good blow job on the tank and a pre filter should help!

I am probably preaching to the converted but.......! I have a small USB camera that when I was building the car I played with to check out various parts of the car, 1 of which was my fuel tank. After cleaning the inside of the tank I could nothing inside it, it was spotless. I built the tank as per the sierra i.e. tank straight to pump with no filter. A few days before my IVA the pump failed (now I know why) and was replaced . This weekend due to fuel starvation in R/H bends I stripped out the boot and rear fuel systems and I could not believe the amount of cr@p in the tank ! Now, 90% of the fuel has come straight out of the pumps in commercial stations with only 10% coming from a can (which has been used for my mower and cement mixer with no issues at all). There where flakes of something red, brown and green in the bottom of the tank. Bits of stuff 2 mm wide and some small twigs and other organic matter were also found???? When the new system goes in I shall be using a new pre filter before the LP pump and a new post filter! I have blown the feed and return pipes through to be on the safe side. Someone on the forum did warn me when I first replaced the pump but how wrong could Ford be?? HTH someone else. I guess in tank pumps must have some sort of screen in them?

Do take your build photos to the test itself as they may help clear up belt mounting issues etc. I took mine on both a laptop and an iPad in case one went wrong! In the end he only looked at 2 photos but you never know! Printed ones (how old fashioned ) would be just as good of course!

I sent mine on a CD and a memory card with no concerns. They sent them back to me when they were finished with them.

Carbon wrapping a dash even with curves is easy, just need a heat gun!

Although it doe appear to have come out as a reply rather than an edit????

This is an edit from my iPad!

Works fine on my iPad! I've posted several times from it and I make enough mistakes to be fairly sure I've edited at least a couple!

The one on the far left is the exhaust pipe shield, you wrap it round the silencer box. The other large one with the 4 tabs wasn't used on my 2b nor could I see any reference to it in the DVDs. The middle one looks like a steering rack mount but mine was welded to the chassis already!

It no good being big if you can't get it in! It's not how big it is anyway, it's what you do with it that counts! Shame I'm crap on both counts! I feel so inadequate with just a 2 litre!

Just to add my experience. The tester at VOSA asked questions of me that were clearly designed to probe my knowledge of the build but had I not built it myself would not have been a problem to answer if I spent some time looking at the car before hand. He never actually asked me "did you build the car?". The chap at the DLVA was only interested in what I had declared about the components on the form. If one was "cheeky" you could just not tell them you didn't build the whole car! None of my submitted pictures actually showed me doing anything on the car except that it was not a professional looking garage. The spirit of the declaration is clearly that you built it or at least had a major part in its bulid. However, it does vary as to how each examiner interprets the rules. As suggested earlier in the thread phone the VOSA centre that you have chosen to ask for advice.

Mine passed IVA with the handbrake on the floor 4 weeks ago, just make sure you place an angled spacer at the front of the mount to raise it up by about 3 cm.

In theory you can see if it spins BUT they are bloody "torquey" and will rip themselves out of a vice if not VERY securely clamped. You should be able to confirm the solenoid works, that the gear is thrown up the shaft and see if the motor spins but there is no guarantee that it has the ability to deliver the power required as even with a winding blown it will still spin.

Now, that's what I call a good response to a question, couldn't be more helpful !

Cheers, I will do just that! Are they a standard sort of box fitted to many models or am I not so lucky?

Now I'm on the road, finally, I will be keeping my current set-up of pinto/type 9 for a while yet. Thinking ahead to late next year when I plan to transplant my VR6 engine in to the 2b I'm after suggestions as to what gearbox to use. My first thought was the later sierra MT box but it need not be a ford I guess? The VR6 can produce around 220 BHP and around 240 Nm of torque ! Any suggestions from you geniuses will be appreciated! I'm sure I'll have to make an adaptor but I do need it to cope with the grunt.

In the early days of the internet and email, having your own domain name for say malcolm@etc was too expensive so I wanted a "handle" for @whoever.I.needed.to.use.at.the.time. The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy was quite new to the world at the time and the Guide at the centre of the story was published by the entirely fictional Megadodo Publications!

Are you not using the sierra column then?

I used to be indecisive, now I'm not so sure! Have you got a coin you could flip? Not much to choose between Webers and Dellorto's really so that's no help. It is all down to how well set up they are. Bike carbs 45s of some description and injection all need to be rolling "roaded" to the get the best out of them. From what I can tell through all the discussions and personal experience is that most people get too big a carb set up for their engine tune so they loose the low engine speed flexibility whereas the bike carbs don't seem to suffer from that as much and get a better "throttle response". Having said that, my twin 45s on a 1600 BMW would pull throughout the revs, when the carbs were balanced.

You need to fit your seat belts properly! You also need a central rear view mirror but I guess they are already on your list?