ibrooks

Turbo - let me see - Maybe a crash helmet? They can look really cool with those stick-on ears and stuff.

Can you feel the downwards movement in the stick? This is the rubber spring. If it's gone weak it will give the symptoms you describe. To test this pull the stick upwards and see if it will still move all the way to the left past first or do you have to let it down a little to get it that far. If this works then the spring is at fault. Either get a new (newer) stick or assist the spring. You can get away with a couple of washers under the plate that holds it into the gearbox (make sure they don't fall in and be aware that the selector will no longer be sealed against road grime). This will lift the selector by the amount that it is currently sagging. If it is the metalwork then you will either need to add metal to replace what has worn off or find replacements that are less worn. The parts in the box are going to be hard to get at but the stick should be relatively easy to remove. It may be possible to find a less worn stick that will cure the problem. In all probability it is a combination of both but the washers or a replacement stick will put you close enough to the original that wear in the box will be taken up. There are instructions on creating a quickshift that have quite good diagrams on how it all works. Possibly these were from Dave Andrews - Anyone? Iain

Tony built his own stuff - I intend to mug him for templates and such when my 2B finally hits the road. The kit that STS used to do was sold to some other place that I can't remember the name of - Rizla any help here Apparently they're quite good. Iain

I suspect there are several manufacturers as the ones I've looked at are all made to fit the M type wheels. Could you get some pics of yours Rizla. Just think of it as an excuse to visit your car. Iain

So will a decent car paint place. If you don't know what it is then paint matching is going to be the only way (barring trial and error with some of the hundreds of shades). Just imagine what trouble Ron Champion would have with his first Locost. According to the book he got two pots of dark green that had been mixed to the wrong (but different) shades by the paintshop and stirred them together to get a uniform colour. Try matching that in a year or two's time. Iain

And there was me just going to say that I have such a device you can borrow or come over and use. Oh-well if you've got it sorted all well and good if not give me a shout. Iain

Slightly off topic but kind of topical. At a Scout camp some years ago the leaders were using walky talkies to stay in contact. There was a particularly annoying kid hanging around and to get rid of him one of the leaders asked him to go to the main building and collect a charged battery for his radio. The kid was away for ages but finally returned with wet trousers and the battery. The story was that he'd put the new battery in his pocket along with his loose change. The inevitable happened and he gained an embarrasing burn and a new hole in his pocket. Why don't these things happen to the right people more often?? Oh yes - he now works in a fireworks factory Scary Iain

The Mini should have stopped fine the first time but had trouble afterwards as drums can't get rid of the heat. Twin leading shoe Drums are actually more effective than discs but they will suffer from heat terribly and fade in no time. I'm surprised at a Sapphire with solid discs (I thought all Sierras had the vented setup by the time the Sapph came along) but there's always one that slips through. The vented discs are designed to get rid of heat better than the solid discs. The solid discs are lighter - a good thing. Any Sierra brake setup should be adequate to stop a Hood as the weight is dramatically less (should be even more so with a bolteon). However you will probably drive a Hood more enthusiastically than the average Sierra would be driven so you may generate more heat. Pro's and con's so the choice is yours. If you're going for light weight I think I personally would use the 1.6 donor but look for a 2.0 lump and upgrade later if necessary. Once you're driving it you can decide if the brakes are up to the job and change them if necessary. Just a final note - I have had various old bangers to which I've fitted the cheapest pads in the shop and I've had them fade when I've been "pressing on". I now always get Ferodo pads as they are a good road pad and don't noticeably drop-off when cold but I've yet to have a set fade - even when I've done some really silly things (the front wheels were too hot to touch). Iain

How else do you think he's paying for all the work they're doing to his monster?

The compression ratio is the bit that seems dodgy to me. Not sure how well a spacer plate would work - hopefully very well. Anyone know what sort of compression ratio would result if you stick a 2.0 head on a 1.6 engine? You should still be able to get in excess of 200bhp (brown trousers time) from a blown 1.6. Iain

You could always investigate a Mini estate/van item. I saw them at the Mini show at Stafford and reckoned they would fit but I already have the RH stainless tank so I didn't investigate exact dimensions/capacities. Mini-sport in Padiham sell them and will post one to you. Mini-machine also do heritage parts and mail order. I think Mini-machine are now called M-machine as BMW have been getting possesive over the Mini name - and in the process they have caused a fair amount animosity between owners of the New and old Mini's. They are manufactured new to the original patterns by British Motor Heritage so you may be able to get one direct from them but I don't know how they would compare on price. Mini-sport are a generally helpful crew and if you give them a shout they will no doubt give you dimensions so you can check if it will fit. Iain

Knowing the temperature of the air drawn into the engine is a good diagnostic point if you're trying to solve a problem but otherwise you just want it as cold as possible. Outside temp like you say should be obvious enough to you - fancy cars sometimes have a sensor to warn these people in their nice warm tin-tops that just coz they're cozy it doesn't mean there ain't ice on the road. Personally I'd go for the intake temp as the more useful of the two but I'd never expect to actually need it for anything other than your initial setup or if you change any of the intake system. Iain

1600 heads are quite often used as the basis for higher compression 2l engines as it's better to open the chambers quite a lot than to have to skim loads off a head with bigger chamber to start with. The 1600 head can conceivably be used on a 2l block straight away but I beleive the compression ratio will be way too high. In theory your swap should be fine as 10-1ish is a good compression ratio without putting too much stress on other things. I wasn't aware that Ford had injected anything other than the 2.0 Pintos though. Iain

MDF can be had that is waterproof. Basically what they do is use waterproof glue (just like with Marine ply). In theory if you soak a waterproof finish well into normal MDF it should have the same effect but the wood will swell in the process. Try thinning some paint down quite a lot and give several coats to the wood before you make your shape and then paint it your final colour. Since the coating will only soak so far get the raw wood to something like the shape first and then you don't chop/sand all your waterproofing off. Make it easily removeable so that you can re-coat every so often (nice winter job). Iain

Just make sure you have something to duck behind when she "gives" the spanner back.

I seem to remember some pulic spirited chap had set up a freepost address for you to send all those unwanted AOL CD's to and he was returning them in batches at their cost. Not sure how it worked financially for him but they must have been receiving a fairly large amount of their junk mail back. Does anyone know any other adresses of people who send spam? Iain

Or breakers yards - you just need to know which sorts of cars used the same system. For 90 degrees try one of the Series Land-Rovers. Moggy Minors used them too and also Jags plus all sorts of others. Iain

Europa also used to do a kit which fitted the body of that lock and made it double or triple acting (quite often used on Cobra boots). A bigger disc replaced the cam on the back of the barrel and when it's turned it shoots several bolts outwards into whatever receptacle you make for them. Iain

They generally have a different style of sender. They kind of resemble the low brake fluid sender in your master cylinder so they just need a vertical hole cut in the foam. You can get the senders from CAi for their range (They now manufacture Smiths guages so probably available for those as well). You can get the foam as a liquid (well two actually) and pour it into a tank andd cut the holes afterwards. No experience of the process but there must be a way to ensure that the foam isn't closed cell afterwards. Iain

Anythings possible. One of the northwest guys has done it I think but apparently it was a big job. Just looking at it I would however think that the latest spaceframe hoods are probably the easier cars to fit it in as the panels are only a skin and not structural (OK they'll add strength but they're not the whole strength of the car). With the proper gear and skill (welding) the chassis mods shouldn't be too difficult (just time consuming and thought provoking). After that you just have to skin over the result - think NASCAR. I think the biggest job is to fit the Rover box as it's wider than the Sierra offerings. Try Magnum Engineering as they do a conversion to fit a V8 on the end of a Ford type-9. It has to be the version with the long input shaft, ex V6, though. There was a V8 converted Sierra on e-bay the other day - but it was a rally beast so not sure if it had the V5 that you'd need to get the age related plate come SVA. From memory since it was a competitive runner it was also expensive. Iain

I may or may not beat Jim to it but don't use Hammerite (Jim has a more accurate name for it). Much better for the underneath bits is some stuff called POR15. Just get some rubber gloves to wear. It says on the tin that if it dries on your skin only time will remove it. Only three days with black patches on my hands made me believe it. Get it from www.frost.co.uk or from their shop in Rochdale. I've never seen powder coating stand the test of time (at least not on a car) as the inevitable scratches let water in and the tin-worm spreads under it like crazy. The bushes in the trailing arms can be replaced with polybushes which are designed to be an easy DIY fit. The old ones were pressed in and will have to be destroyed to get them out. Best way I've seen (outside cos it stinks) is to set the thing on fire and wait for the middle to drop out. now carefully attack the outer sleeve with a hacksaw blade - make sure you don't cut too far you only want to cut the sleeve not the housing. The one in the end of the tube - well polybush do one but I'm not sure how easy/difficult they are to fit. Again the old one would have to be destroyed to remove it. Shot/sand blasting would destroy them just enough to be un-usable but not enough to remove them. Iain

There's a place that advertises on E-Bay - renaissance-cvt. Never used them myself as I have always hired a trailer and done it myself (funnily enough the last time was to collect an S7 from the Oxfordshire area). As for reasonable price - dunno - trailer costs about £30 per day plus fuel for the barge. Iain

The big boss in the middle of the Sierra fan is the thermo-viscous clutch. This means the blades are fairly free from the pulley when cold but as it heats up they are more directly connected. The earlier Fords with Pintos didn't have a thermo-viscous unit but a true viscous fan which is held on with the four bolts that hold the pulley onto the water pump. Since it doesn't have the clutch it's centre boss is smaller and the total diameter is smaller whilst the blades are the same length. Just an aside about these fans taking power from the engine. I had a thermo unit sieze on my Sierra (turning it into a viscous) and the difference it made was unbelievable - a tuned 2.1 felt gutless. The difference it made when I put a "new" thermo unit on was amazing - put the grin back on my face anyway. Fit electric if you can there are various thin fans out there. My personal favourite is the pusher from in front of a Sierra or Granada with air-con - large diameter and fairly thin. Having said all that I may not be the best person to listen to when talking about cooling systems. Check the north-west pages and look at the Harrogate report from last year. Yep that first picture is me and my S7. Iain

Just a thought so no torrents of abuse if you think it's a crap idea (I know you wouldn't anyway - but ). For those of you looking at fuel tanks it may be worth considering a Mini van/estate item. They look around the right size and they'll be internally baffled. They're also not as rare as you may think since there are places now manufacturing them new again. There were several stalls at Bingley at the weekend selling new ones for around £60 (how does that compare to the alternatives?). They are a kind of oblong that sits under the rear floor area of the Mini and the filler pipe sticks up almost vertically from the side and through the body side of the Mini. On a 2B, for example, you could either cut the filler neck off and use flexible tube to have the filler through the rear panel or it could be extended vertically and come through the side of the boot cover (one of the fixed side pieces - just don't spill fuel up there or it'll end up in the boot). I didn't have my camera with me so I didn't get any photos unfortunately. I'll try and mug my cousin who seemed to snap everything in sight. Iain

Well yesterday the DVLA vindicated my opinion of them as a set of clowns. I now have two reminders asking me to either get a tax disc or declare SORN. So what you all say - my response is that they are both for the same car but at different addresses (one was forwarded from my old address). Maybe they just read my last post and decided to make life difficult for me. Iain