ibrooks

Buy him a bicycle and insure him to use yours on occasion so that he can keep his hand in behind the wheel. So long as people keep just paying up they'll keep adding zeros on to the quotes. Iain

More on the clearout theme. A Weber (40 I think) DCOE carb on a Lynx manifold for a Pinto. Apparently someone has just started making these manifolds again and want £200+ each for them (seen on Totalkitcar in the last week or two). I paid £50 for this lot so that's what you guys can have it for. There are a couple on ebay for scary money at the moment. Iain

Provisionally gone.

More on the theme of getting rid of stuff I'm just not going to use. Came off a 3.0V6 and was running fine. It' had some sort of manual choke conversion (before I got the car so I don't have the bits to convert back) again it was doing the job fine on the Scimitar. It's been sat in a drawer in the garage for a fe years so whilst it would probably work if you just bolted it to a car I'd suggest throwing a rebuild kit at it first in case any seals/diaphrams/gaskets have perished. £30 plus postage or whatever sound reasonable? Iain

There's nothing wrong with you insuring a car for your kids to drive so long as the insurance company are informed that they are the main driver. Where it becomes fraud is if you just add them as an additional driver and either tell them or allow them to assume that you are the main driver with the kid just driving it occasionally. I managed to knock £100 off the insurance price for my daily this year by adding my mother to the policy. The insurers are aware that we don't live in the same house and that she doesn't have a car of her own but so be it. I doubt that she'll ever even sit in the drivers seat. I suppose it might come in handy if I leave it with her to take for the MOT whilst I use another to go to work. Iain

Hi Dan, Snapperpaul was there first so he has first dibs but I'm thinking the distance might be an issue for him within the timescales so you might be in with a shout. If you are then one day next week should be fine as I've got the whole week booked off to play with cars. Iain

The axle is in Chorley at our club unit.

£35 plus postage or whatever it takes to get it to you? Iain

The dizzy, amplifier module and the wiring in between them. I've still got them as they have never been collected so as with the axle I've just put up if you want them come and get them. Iain

I've got a rear axle from an 87ish 2.0 injected Sierra taking up space I need. It's got push in shafts and drum brakes and drove OK before I took the car apart. I think it should be a 3.62 diff but don't have any hard evidence one way or another. Come and take it away if you want it - it's in Chorley but at the end of next week it'll be going to the tip. It was supposed to be going to someone from here but they never came to get it so I'm sorry but I'm not going to be hanging onto it until the 12th of never - if you want it come in the next week. Iain

So if I happened to have a pair of Quaife peg adjustment ones that have never been fitted they might be of interest? They were intended for a Mini conversion that puts a twin cam motorbike head on an A-Series block and it uses two Pinto pulleys to drive the cams. Might be why they are difficult to come by second hand as the Mini people doing this conversion are grabbing them in pairs. I'm not going to be using them as I'm going for a different 16v engine instead so I'm selling the kit I've assembled but might be prepared to split these bits.... Rally design list them and have a picture - part number QEPPA. I can take pictures of mine if you're iterested. Iain

Depends on what you are crimping. That one is for the common crimps with the red, blue and yellow sleeves. I have a very similar one that I got from B&Q in a box with a load of connectors - it's a convenient box so I replenish the connectors as I use them. I find these OK for one-off connections but they can be a bit bulky if you have a lot of wires to connect in one place and if you ever need to disconnect them it's a faff pulling lots of connections apart and putting them back together in the right order. The one Nigel has pictured is for non-insulated crimps that generally push into a multi-plug of some variety. Much better for areas where you might want to disconnect a sub-loom. As I mentioned these are what I have at the bottom of the steering column on my GTM so that I can disconnect three plugs and remove the column if necessary I've also used a weatherproof multi-plug on the wiring for the front lights so that when removing the front clam I only have one plug to disconnect. I don't have the ratchet version of the tool - I got one from www.vehicleproducts.co.uk (reference MP71) which does the job fine. Iain

I've just replaced the loom on the GTM and since I wa mating to the tails on Triumph/Mini switch gear I used a fair number of connectors from here http://www.autosparks.co.uk/index.php?cPath=94&page=2 The specific ones I used start at the end of that page. and into the first part of the next page. I've used Autosparks quite a few times and never had an issue. not sure if they stock plugs to match the Ford stuff though. Polevolt do a lot of plugs to match the big manufacturers stuff. The "special" crimp tool for the specific connectors I used costs around £8 and makes a far better crimp than the more commonly seen insulated crimps that the majority of motor factors use. I also have a pro style ratchet crimping tool for those though which again makes a far better job of them which is far and away better than the crimp you can get from the pliers style ones. Iain

This might be the answer but be a bit careful. There are two sections of the round tube part of the column that have been crimped into triangular shape to get a grip on the triangular part and the triangular part MUST be through both of those sections. Ideally pull the triangular section all the way out and hold it against the outside of the column so that it's upper end is level with the upper crimped section of the round tube and mark where the bottom of the outer tube reaches on the triangular shaft - then shove it back in till you reach the mark. This is the longest it can be and if you still need more length you will have to find it elsewhere. Iain

Number one I would suggest is to narrow down which engine you are running. "2.0 EFi 8v from a Sierra" covers two possible engines and they are very different beasts. Is it a SOHC (Pinto) or a DOHC (I4)? In general though a lot of the injection gubbins is the same. The idle control valve should be connected and working. If the engine idles without it then it suggests that the throttle flap is adjusted so that it never fully closes and whilst this is OK as far as airflow goes the ECU is going to be seeing it from the TPS as if someone permanently has the accelerator pressed a little rather than idle conditions. The small rubber tube will be a vacuum take-off for something. It'll either be operating something or going to a sensor to let the ECU know something. The little plastic canister with CARB written on it will either be a one-way valve or a plenum chamber to reduce pulsing. The fact that one end is labelled makes it more likely to be a valve but not necessarily. Not holding a constant speed "feels" like the airflow sensor to me. If you unplug the things on the EECIV system you can start the engine and keep it running by constantly altering the accelerator pedal position but as soon as you take your foot off the pedal for more than a couple of seconds it'll die. OK your problem isn't as extreme but it sounds like a lesser version of the same problem. Iain

The insurance company are probably sticking Triumph in the manufacturer field and then looking at the options for 1500cc cars in their little list. I'd suggest it's one of the big outfits that he's talking to as the specialists are not so likely to use this type of database and will more often go off what they are told on the phone. As an aside it might be worth getting the documents corrected - it shouldn't really stil have Triumph in there. Assuming you can find someone at DVLA/Vosa who actually has more than the pre-requisite three brain cells it shouldn't be a big drama as they have obviously been informed of the change from Spitfire/Dolomite to Hood whenever it happened and just not updated all the fields in their records. With this sort of thing they are supposed to make the changes as it will be relatively easy to see that the changes were made pre IVA/SVA because they will be able to check their rcords as to when the changes that they have done happened. Iain

The sender and gauge must match or they will read incorrectly - looks like this is what you have. There are several options...... If you know what the gauge is (original Sierra? or something else) you might be able to get the correct sender. If not then it would be possible to measure using a variable resistor what resistance it needs to show a given temp range and you might be able to find a sender that matches. You connect the resistor instead of the gauge and turn it to run the gauge through it's range noting the resistance at certain temperature points on the gauge. Plot this lot on a graph to see if it's linear or maybe logarithmic and you then know what you're asking for. Failing that as long as it's consistent you can use another method to take a set of readings of the engine temp (turkey thermometer in the top hose?) and look at what yours reads so you know for a given reading on your gauge what it really means. Ultimately the final solution is to buy a replacement gauge and sender pair that you know will read right from the word go. Iain

And that's assuming that they stay cool when they stop spraying the water on them after the 48 hours. If the acetylene is burning inside the bottle then the steps to take are large fast ones. I'd love a set because it's really useful and easy to use but the storage of it and the number of times I'd atually use it simply makes it impractical. The torches and whatnot can be sold on ebay with no probs and because of most of the stuff listed above they don't tend to fetch much money. Iain

You can't do that on a monocoque car though as those side panels are structural. On the 2B you have a spaceframe and the side-panel is simply a cladding. Iain

Given my past experiences with Flux I'd spend the extra couple of quid and go with Frank Pickles though. In fact given my experiences of Flux if they'd quoted the £87 and Frank Pickles had quoted the £175 I'd still have gone with Frank. The theory of shopping around is sound though. I recently renewed the Volvo's insurance and from a price of £500 odd last year my renewal had gone up to over £1300 (no idea why as the only difference to me and the cr is that we're both a year older). Shopping around and adding my mum to the policy got it down to just over £600 I doubt my mum will ever even sit in the drivers seat but so be it. Iain

These sorts of statement always puzzle me. Why would they need one? Even assuming it fell into unfriendly hands and they thought of some nasty use for it other than running it into something like the World Trade Centre and you get wind of it in time that you wanted to shoot one down to prevent it - it's not the chasing plane that does the damage and we most definitely had ordnance that could catch and kill Concorde. Iain

The only real "derivative" of the Pinto that you are likely to come across is the Cosworth YB and you'll need deep pockets to afford anything with the name Cosworth associated with it. It's a common misconception that the later DOHC engines fitted to Sierras are a Pinto with a different cylinder head - they bear no relation to the Pinto and almost nothing from one will fit the other. RS2000 - the only one with anything Pinto related is the RWD Escort of the '70s and as such it is not an unleaded head so not really that attractive to you in standard form. The later RS2000 used a version of the I4 DOHC engine mentioned above. The best of the standard Ford offerings is the head from a 2.0 injected Pinto which has a good port shape to start with and hardened valve seats. Since we are talking about modified parts though there is no saying that an injection head couldn't have been ruined by some muppet with a die-grinder in an attempt to port it and that an early head might not have been beautifully ported and had hardened valve seats fitted. Big valves and Kent cams are fine if they are still in good condition. A Vernier is a must if the head has been skimmed or a non-standard cam has been fitted or you'll never be able to get it just right. There are many variations of cam though so buy one that does what you'll want to use it for - it's no good having a rally cam if you plan to drive it on the road. Apart from that then yes it's just a matter of pulling your head off and fitting the one with the trick bits but the assumption is that the replacement is all good to start with and this is a big assumption. If it's good why is it not still attached to the rest of the engine and running in a car? There are good reasons that should mean you will have no problems but ask yourself the question. Iain

The important bit is to get it parallel with the gearbox's output shaft. i.e. if you imagine a line sticking out of the middle of the output shaft and one the same on the input flnge of the diff - those lines must be as close to parallel as possible in all three dimensions. If they are parallel then the angles of the UJ's will cancel each other out and acount for any misalignment. If they aren't then you will have an overall angle in the joints and as the output shaft of the box turns the drive-flange of the diff will increase and decrease in speed. A degree or two isn't noticeable but get it wrong to any extent and the vibration is un-believable. Iain

I'm not 100% on what you do need but you definitely don't want the V6 bell-housing. The V6 engines have a different bolt pattern on the engine so whilst a V6 bell-housing might fit the box it won't fit a 4-pot engine. Since the only physical difference in sizes between the V6 type-9 and a 4-pot one is the length of the input shaft then like you seem to have concluded I'd suggest you need a 4-pot bell-housing. Iain

Huddersfield Mini Spares are clearing a bunch out. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360287841367&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fshop.ebay.co.uk%3A80%2F%3F_from%3DR40%26_trksid%3Dp4712.m570.l1313%26_nkw%3D%2B360287841367%26_sacat%3DSee-All-Categories%26_fvi%3D1&_rdc=1 They are all odd seats although this afternoon they did have one pair in black cloth with yellow piping and no harness holes. After that they all seem to have a different combination of material and it's colour, piping or not and colour of the piping and whether they have harness holes or not. I went across and dug through the pile to come up with a pair in black with black piping and harness holes but one has Cobra embroidered on the headrest and the other doesn't. Some of them also have very minor marks where they have been scuffed in storage and whatnot but I didn't see anything dramatic on the ones I looked at. There was also a "pair" of black ones with no harness holes but one had piping and the other didn't - these would be a better match than the ones I got but I specifically wanted harness holes. Iain