ibrooks

Timing is everything - I threw a couple of type-9 five speed boxes in a skip last weekend because I'd advertised them as free to collector once or twice and had no responses. Oh well :boohoo: If you pick a 4x4 donor you will need a different gearbox and no none of the 4x4's came with a Pinto so a different engine as well. This may seem like a tall order but if the 4x4 is cheap enough it may be worth going for and "changing" the engine and box before you break it up for the Hood. You'll get an LSD diff for your trouble though . Iain

If any of you disagree I'll remove the bit from my posting but personally I think it's absolutely true. I haven't been able to put as much back into the club as I think I've taken out due to other comittments but that's part of what makes it so great - I'm still welcome and on the odd occasion I do appear at an event I'm part of the crew. Iain

Tak - I've been able to get the current ones but the first two issues I missed and am having difficulty getting. Thanks for that Gordon I await with great anticipation. Iain

If the Clio is called Zippy. How about Bungle or George (or even Geoffrey) for the Hood. Were the others Rod Jane and Freddy? Iain

Has anyone in the North-West got the first two issues of Practical Perfomance car that I could steal for a few days. Or could anyone anywhere copy the article on throttle-bodies and DIY injection and send it to me somehow. Thanks Iain

Just curious - whilst I was waiting to collect the 2B, one of the newsletters from RHE advertised that they had a single set of mint-green fibreglass for one that the first person to call could have for a little extra (think it was swept wings and since mine was from the first batch probably the full rear arches rather than just the crescents). Did anyone go for it? Is there a car on the road using it? Iain

Nishka welcome to the tribe where can I get a girl like yours? Jim - with all these new lunatics in the area have you still got enough stickers or do I need to make some more? Realised the other night that I foolishly gave you all the ones I'd made and left myself without one for the 2B so I'll be making more anyway. Iain

Getting a garage to do bits for you will definitely be expensive (unless you're related to the owner). There is no reason why you won't be able to build one. There are very few difficult jobs and for the odd bit that needs a specialist tool there are either workarounds or someone in the club will lend you the tool and or come around and help. The club is fairly active in most parts of the country (there are the odd remote outposts but if you are near one of them then it will become a little less remote). The main constraint is time - and lots of it - if you don't put the time in it'll never be finished. Think about everything (twice) before you do it - because it's annoying to have to re-do something and difficult to get rid of unwanted holes. My 2B has taken me ages to build because I couldn't spend the time on it (partly due to me buying the S7 partway through the build - I wanted to be on the road in a Robin Hood and couldn't wait until I'd finished the 2B). Just beware the VISIT if you're in the north-west - it could cost more in tea and biscuits than it would have cost to have it done at the garage (the Phuckawi tribe hunts in packs). Iain

Mild steel isn't as brittle as stainless and will stand more flexing before cracks develop. Basically if you take two pieces of metal the same size but one in stainless and one in mild steel and bend them backwards and forwards. The stainless one will break first but they will both break. MkIV and V Cortinas used to be prone to it at high mileages. It usually started from the aerial hole on the winng top and worked it's way down the outside of the wing - used to amaze me how far some of them got before it either failed an MOT or was fixed. Iain

Number one and let's see if I can beat Jim to it - put your location in your profile. Chances are someone local will invite you to have a look and possibly a ride. Have you actually had quotes for insurance? generally from what i've heard a 1.6 won't make that much difference to a 2.0. Steer clear of the 1.8 - there's nothing intrinsically wrong with them but they were rarer and not so tuneable or easy to get bits for. A 1.6 will go fast but not as fast as a 2.0 E-Bay has a section for kit-cars. I bought one that I'd seen on Findit.co.uk. The kit-car mags usually have a classified section at the back. Oh and I'm selling one at the moment Iain

You don't have any numbers that might come in handy for a lottery ticket do you?

Well folks it looks like Cabin Boy has his first car. Iain

I'd be interested on the supplier front. I'm planning to go the modified bike bodies route for my Hood. I have the bodies (£4.99 plus postage from EBay) and I've been lurking on the megasquirt Yahoo group where one of the guys imports kits from the US and adds the extras over here to send you a complete kit - but I've been waiting a couple of months now for him to "get some more stock in". Iain

Hi folks, I have replaced my daily driver and so the old one is surplus to requirements. If someone wants it come and take it away - free. It's a 1992 K registered Rover 214i. The body has had one patch of welding on a sill the usual rusty scab where the front wing meets the bumper and a dent in the drivers door (vandals with a stone). The interior is all there and in working order. The engine runs fine (but the water is mucky - possibly oil) there are no signs of mayonnaise in the oil (yet). The gearbox is fine. It's covered nearly 100k miles and has been in the family from new. The MOT expires NEXT July. It'll even come with a fan-belt and a fuel filter which I never got around to fitting at the last service and a set of brake shoes which I bought to cure a squeek - I took the drums off and decided it wasn't necessary to fit them just brush the dust out. It currently has a tax disc (about 5 months left) but I will be claiming that back so if you want the car then you can either buy it from me or you need to get one. I have it insured until next Saturday - if no-one wants it by then it will be driven to the scrap-yard. If someone wants me to deliver it within sensible distance of Darwen I will pending a lift home again and before the insurance is out. Like I say it's free but you need to let me know quickly and collect it or take delivery before the end of the week. Probably worth a few beers in bits if you have the time to break it - I don't have the time inclination or space. Iain

The Mountney wheel should pass on all but the radius of the spokes. The Sierra wheel doesn't have a collapsible element. If you look at the Sierra column there is a telescopic joint at the bottom to protect from any shock which is passed up it from a frontal impact and there is then a collapsible section at the top to protect the driver in the event that they hit it from the wheel end. Your tester has just gone into robot mode and taken the easy route - fail it rather than expend some effort checking whether it is actually compliant or not. As some of the guys have said there are ways to silence your existing system (some permanent, some temporary). You can also retard the ignition to make it quieter (can make it a so-and-so to start though) and then re-set it afterwards. You don't have to spend a fortune (at the moment anyway). Personally I'd do what you have to to get it through as is and then start adding fancy bits later. Iain

We have a Bosch which was keyless but now we need to use a key. The drill's gearbox had some sort of self-locking mechanism such that when not being driven you turned the chuck against the lock. Unfortunately it doesn't self-lock anymore so when you try to turn the chuck the motor spins and the whole lot goes around. Furtunatelt there is a hex on the end of the chuck so with the aid of a 19mm spanner you can still use it. Caused some hilarity at the weekend - my uncle was watching me and dad work and I aksed dad to pass the chuck-key. My uncle creased up when dad passed me a spanner (must have thought he'd lost his hearing-aid) he then stopped as I accepted it and did indeed use it as a chuck-key - dad and I are used to it so it took us a while to work out what he was laughing at but we then had an unofficial break as we were all laughing so hard that we didn't trust ourselves to drill a hole in the right place.

Fords max recommended was 6250 for the injection engines and a little lower for the others. You will break a Pinto if you rev it too high too often - or rather you will break things in it which will then do other nasty things to it. Having said that WE will probably still get reasonable life from an abused Pinto because they are really over-engineered and we don't tend to do that much mileage in ours. Basically Pinto's were designed when the average quality of the materials was much lower (and more variable) so everything had to be bigger to be strong enough. As time marched on materials became much better to the point that even the cheapest grades of steel available in the 80's were better than that which the Pinto was designed for so the engine is stronger than it needs to be and can take abuse in it's stride that would kill a later engine in very short order. The best of the standard con-rods are supposed to be the injection ones which I have been told should withstand brief but regular forays to 7250. The rings are apparently the weak point and shouldn't be taken past 6500 for any more than a few seconds. At these sort of engine speeds you are putting major stress on the bottom end due to the fact that the pistons are so heavy so big-ends, rods, little ends and main-bearings are all being subjected to major abuse. If you want to use this kind of rev-range you should be looking at Cosworth components for the bottom end or treating the standard stuff as comsumable. The flywheel bolts have a habit of shearing on high torque motors and you should indeed look to get them doweled to the crank. Again Cosworths have a different crank with more and stronger bolts. So There Iain

Must admit my old Land-Rover had enough to give the guy coming the other way a sun-tan if he didn't dip his lights - it really irritates me when they won't dip them. There were four square driving lamps along the top of the roll-cage, two Cibie Super oscars above the bumper and two Fireballs below the bumper (with illegal bulbs). They were all on seperate switches that were then fed by the main beam switch so I could select just what came on with the main-beam. Normally the Fireballs and the four high-level lamps were isolated for road use but if I came across a twit they got the lot. I also had four square lamps pointing backwards as reversing lamps - useful when someone came up behind me with their main-beam on. Would love some spots for the Hood but haven't found anything that looks right (or where to put them) yet. Have been thinking of inside the nosecone..... Iain

Joey - you missed the S6 And I thought there were other non-LSIS motors like the Daytona. And it's not nice to make fun of Jim - even if he is old, decrepit and forgetful - we still love him all the same Iain

Salty - just a quick one. In order to suck back, the cap on the rad needs two seals. One is the pressure seal and sits on the shoulder inside the filler neck and the other seals around the top of the neck - not sure if this is the case with yours but...... Looking at Jims picture I'm just wondering how he got the screws into the battery without it leaking. By the way a cap from a Land-rover 2286 diesel oil filler is the same fitting but doesn't have the pressure machanism. So you could use that and run the rad-overflow to the expansion tank and fit a normal cap on that (just bear in mind that the overflow would then be at pressure). Iain

I have a tendancy to forward the original to the company it purports to be from and then fill it out with legitimate LOOKING info and send it back to the originator from an e-mail address I keep for spam. If they actually get any money from their fishing then they should be forced to do at least some work for it even if it's just working out that what I sent them is rubbish and you never know how stupid they are - hopefully they'll get caught some day trying to use my dodgy info. Iain

You can but you don't have to. Wheels from an earlier RWD Ford have the correct PCD, taper, seat for the nuts, centre spigot hole AND the desirable offset. The only problem is getting them in the larger diameters as that wasn't the fashion (or technology) when those cars were around. If you are buying new just specify that the wheels are to be the fitment for a Capri or similar rather than a Sierra. Iain

I echo the comments of the other guys and the good wishes. Just a thought - why can't a Hood be automatic? or would the brake still be too heavy? Would depend on more specifics of the injury and how you recover. I have Erbs Palsy and as a consequence my entire left side is much weaker than it should be. Now fortunately ( ) this has been from birth so I've learned to live with it from the word go rather than having to re-learn things so it's been easier for me. I still almost took a disabled driving test and would have qualified for a motability car - damn fool said no I don't really need it so I'll not sponge off the taxpayer. Like Pete a heavy clutch can cause me problems so I very nearly built my 2B as an auto. I think the auto-box is wider but the pedals would take up less room so the footwells could maybe be narrower. It's then just a matter of fitting it between the vertical tubes. The prop could be made if it's different. Not sure if the lower weight of the Hood would upset the gearchange or not - anyone know autos better than me (there must be lots of you coz I know **** all about them). Iain

Jim - I remember a write-up you did on how to change them that had me killing myself in the office - at the time I only had one member of staff and she didn't see the funny side. "feel gently for the lip and then hit the b u g g e r s hard with a hammer" Aren't you going to include it again? Iain

I had the same problem for most of last summer but I was looking forward to getting some more use out of it this year - some chance I'd have been better getting a Dutton Mariner. Iain