ibrooks

There were some circumstances where the vehicle woud be registered with an age related plate "based on the date of manufacture of the engine" and that resulted in a rash of this sort of thing. DVLA fairly quickly modified the regs and whilst they would still issue "pre '73" age related registrations they would never qualify for historic vehicle status so they still had to pay tax. I'm guessing this one was registered using this method in the period before DVLA cottoned on to what people were doing. If that's the case then there is nothing dodgy going on (apart from DVLA's inconsistency and incompetence but since when is that new). I'd certainly ask some questions around how it got the historic vehicle status if I was looking to buy it but assuming I got the right answers with suitable documentation I wouldn't have any qualms about buying it. Iain

I wouldn't go as far as impossible - you can certainly feel resistance but it's only if you try to do it at speed that the liquid goes into "hump" and it really does it's stuff. Iain

The diff is biased towards one (drivers I think) side so the shorter one goes on that side. It should be fairly obvious on the car as the holes they fit into so-to-speak are different sizes. It's been a while since I've been messing around with Sierra stuff so I'd have to go and look myself to confim which side is the shorter. Are you sure it's a 3.6? it would be fairly unusual for a 2.0 Sierra to have a 3.6 LSD - they normally got the 3.9. But then it would also be unusual for a 2.0L to have an LSD at all as they normally only got fitted to the XR4x4, GLSi4x4, Ghia4x4 or Cosworth 4x4 models. But given the age anything could have been fitted by a previous owner or two. Iain

Grim, Al and Ian were the first there. Ever think you should maybe have asked for more money? Paul sorry but you've missed out on a diff but should be able to sort a set of half-shafts. Iain

Another one probably not of much interest here but you never know. Servo and master cylinder from a Sierra with discs all round but no ABS. I'm fairy certain the master cylinder is 25mm diameter and the servo is HUGE. Probably way ott for a Hood. Has been in a car for about 6 months so very clean and good condition. £50 This one I'll post but it'll probably be pricey due to the weight. Iain

Slightly rarer than rocking horse droppings. This is a rear axle from a 4x4 car but with the mythical drum brakes on Lobro shafts. As far as I know the brakes themselves are the same as other contemporary Sierras and the only part of the whole that is actually rare is the stub axle that has splines through the drum but a lobro flange on the back side to connect to a lobro shaft. I'm selling the diff seperately but any 7" Sierra/Granada diff with lobro output flanges should fit. Or if you buy both I'll simply leave it all connected together. £50 Collection from Chorley. Iain

For those with an urge to go everywhere sideways. The engine is straight as it came from the Granada but less the torque convertor. The vast majority of the Granada's wiring loom is there including the ECU and EDIS units. The exhaust manifolds are present and the downpipes until just after the lambda sensors. £150 Collected from Darwen. Iain

No I haven't taken up dealing in illicit substances. Limited-slip-diffs from 4x4 Sierras. I've got a couple from V6 Sierras that should make them 3.62 ratios £40 each I've got one from a 2.0 Sierra so it should be a 3.92. £50 Collection definitely preferred from Darwen but I might be able to arrange to hand them to a courier. I've also got the fronts to match if anyone wants them for any reason. Iain

DOHC engine from a 4x4 so the wrong sump for most people here but useful as a spare if you've already got one it has some ancilliaries still fitted but if there's a particular part you want let me know and I'll make sure it's attached. £30 - purely because it's got a brand new clutch on it. Sorry but collection in person from Chorley only as it's at a rented unit. Iain

Making a trailer that makes your car look like a push-me-pull-you?

Very old. Usually told along with the one where the user has complained that the cup-holder has broken off their computer. Yes the CD-ROM tray. Two good ones I've personally seen. User complained that he could never write any information to a floppy disk. Turned out that he had a fridge magnet stuck to the case of his PC next to the floppy drive. Similar complaint from a woman but her disks stopped working once she had labelled them. 5.25 floppies so confirmed that she was not writing the labels on the disk with a ball-point pen (the casings are only card so a ball-point pen will press through onto the disk inside). No she did the labels on her typewriter. It took an embarrasing amount of time (because none of us believed that she was THAT stupid) for us to realise that she was sticking the blank labels on the disk and then putting the whole lot through the type-writer. More recently we had a call from a guy who's mouse had stopped working. Went to visit and the user waves his mouse all around the desk with not a flicker from the pointer. The lad at the next desk pipes up that he had logged in and it was the same for him. Now I was glad we had gone on the way to lunch so there were two of us that saw this guy moving his glasses case around on his desk (and the guy on the next desk admitting that he two hadn't spotted it). I really do work with rocket scientists. Be very afraid. Iain

Are you thinking purely of a locating/aligning pin or maybe about an Aerocatch which will secure the bonnet as well as giving a degree of alignment? Iain

I had a Fiesta that used to back it's spark plugs out every few weeks. Hateful thing that also burned nearly as much oil as petrol and would regularly start runing on 3 cylinders as it had fouled a plug. I took to carrying a spare set with me and became quite adept at identifying which cylinder had dropped so I could just swap the offending one. Never did get to the bottom of why they worked themselves loose as I only ran the thing for a few months whilst my Sierra was being painted. Iain

That does look promising. Iain

I didn't really fancy trying to make it look like it's all Carbon fibre and I suspect I'd still have trouble covering it due to the combination of convex and concave curves. It would have to be done in sections and I don't know what I'd do at the edges. The fallback position is to just smooth the whole thing off and paint it - body colour might be a bit too much as the car is going white. Reflections might be a problem. I've been bouncing ideas off some of the guys here at work and I'm wondering about giving it a coat of stonechip and then matt/satin black paint. I'm going to stonechip the sills anyway so I'll see what sort of texture I get from the gun to give me an idea of the effect. Might have a test lump of something ready to stonechip at the same time as the sills that I can then paint for an even better idea. Any other suggestions/ideas still welcome. Iain

Anybody got any clever suggestions or contacts around covering a dashboard? I've made some changes to the dash in my GTM and as a result have some holes to fill. I'll laminate new GRP over the holes but the problem is that the original has a grained surface to he gel-coat to make it lok like it's covered in leather. I won't be able to match this so need to find a method of covering the whole thing in a consistent finish once I've done the repairs. I've sort of got a contact for flocking but haven't had a chance to speak to him yet and I'd like any real life experience people have of what it's like to live with in a road car. It's a quite complex shape so covering myself in leathercloth or similar isn't an option - I've done a few things but wouldn't even attempt this. Anyone know a trimmer that might at reasonable cost? Anyone know of any other methods or finishes that might do the trick? I am wondering if there's a textured paint that would look OK. Iain

You are adjusting the length of the outer with the ratchet released aren't you? The later escorts MkIV used the same system but with a sort of grub screw that moves the quadrant rather than relying on a spring and ratchet pawl. The quadrants even still have the teeth - just not used. Might be worth looking at the pedals from those. Iain

A mate has loaned me his copy but I've yet to have a go with it. He raves about it too. I have been looking at one called R-Factor - apparently that engine is used by at least one of the current F1 teams for driver practice. It needs a decent video card but not massive by today's spec so again not silly money. The guys running this tend to run 3 monitors side-by-side and as you say a force-feedback wheel with pedals. The guy who put me on to it has a Caterham and is a member of a group that run a race series on their own servers (well one of the group's server). The system is open source so lots of people have built cars for it which you can download and then race - ditto tracks. Iain

Those who are having problems with the ratchet mechanism need to lengthen the cable outer. Add some tube between the end of the outer and the piece of tube sticking out of the pedal box. As an experiment lift the pedal to release it and then grab hold of the outer and pull it away from the bulkhead/pedal-box. If there's any slack then there's your problem. You can experiment with some wooden spacers with a slot cut in them wide enough to clear the cable inner. Drop these over the bit of cable that you expose when the ratchet is released and you pull the outer away from the pedal-box. Once you've got the outer tight with just a couple of clicks on the ratchet make a proper spacer the same length as your lumps of wood. The ratchet mechanism works just fine when the cable length is correct. Iain

Do you have the "mushrooms" and bottom ball-joints already or are you planning to buy/make them. Scorpio front hubs are interchangeable with Sierra 4x4 hubs you see so with a bigger mushroom and suitable bottom ball-joint they would do the job and since they are overlooked as a kit-donor they seem to be more readily available. Late ones use the 4x108 PCD so Sierra wheels will fit but if you get a 5-stud one then the guts should be interchangeable from your existing modified hubs. Failing that I've got one sat in the scrap pile in my garage and I'm not far from you. I'm fairly certain I do have the pair for it but not certain just where it is - they are scrap to me so I was going to send this one for weighing in and the other one when I come across it. Iain

Hammerite

So long as you stick to another Pinto then there is little difference between 1.3, 1.6, 1.8 or 2.0. You should be able to pull the existing one out and remove all the ancilliaries, bolt them to the smaller replacement and shove it back in the hole. 1.8's were less common so some of the internal parts are hard to come by but as long as it's good to start with then you should have no need to be messing with the difficult bits. Then keep looking for a replacement 2.0 or saving the pennies to change to something completely different at a later date. Iain

Testing the water really as I'm not 100% decided on selling this (if someone wants to buy it then that will push me in that direction with the decision). It's an SPD200 kit made whilst thy were still Sportspowerdrive. It's designed to take the running gear from a Sierra and whilst it will accomodate the conventional front engine rear drive setup the tunnel also has space for 4wd to be retained. The frame is welded steel and then the body is fibreglass. Most details are as per the spec on www.sportsandleisurecars.co.uk. The main seller for me is that it's dimensionally accurate with none of the odd proportions of the old Kara kits. What I've got.... The chassis which is in rolling form with a 4x4 Cosworth rear axle fitted and the associated front crossmember. The front legs have been replaced with coilovers and there are a pair of modified front CV joints in the 4x4 front hubs to allow them to be used in a 2wd car. The body. The rear section has been modified by Trevor who makes the Impreza based RS200 copy (and the Sierra based Mustang GT500 copy) so it has the correct "window" in the rear spoiler. There are two intercooler tops and the Evo "ears". There are also two front bumpers and two bonnets (the spares are from a Banham but that's the only banham connection with this car). There is a bronze tint rear screen in polycarbonate, a brand new bronze tint heated MKI Sierra front windscreen and I have glass for both doors (2-door Sierra) plus a duplicate for one side. There are the original SPD supplied doors plus a pair of 2-door Sierra doors which I intended to cut down and use as this gives a much nicer feeling door(again like the ones Trevor has done for his car). There is also a lamp pod. There is a fibreglass copy of an RS200 dash and I've been collecting the correct Ford switchgear and vents for it and think I've pretty much got everything apart from gauges. There are a couple or RS Turbo Recaro seats which are the later style but the same fabric colours as the Tickford trimmed cars plus the same steering wheel as a real RS200 but in black leather rather than grey and red. Mechanically. The car is rolling at the moment (on a set of geniune RS200 Speedline alloys) but in addition to the bits that are bolted to it there is most of a 2.0 DOHC 4x4 Sierra plus a spare gearbox. There is also a mechanically complete (interior has been binned) 2.9 V6 GLSi 4x4 Sierra with an MOT till October (and obviously it's associated V5). The Sierra has covered less than 100 miles since it's MOT and I doubt it would have a problem with another unless brakes have siezed with it standing or similar. There is a spare V6 4x4 gearbox too (yes that makes 4 gearboxes). I think there are also a pair of spare diffs for a 4x4 V6. Now for the best bit. I obviously intended the car to take a second or third glance to be told apart from a real 200 but I also wanted it to be able to go something like a real one so there are also two Scorpio Cosworth V6 engines (BOA's) one of which I intended to fit (obviously fitting to the Sierra first and documenting so that I could retain single donor status and get an age related plate). One has already been in a Sierra and includes the modified wiring loom with ECU and the second comes with the Granada loom in a suitcase. 200bhp out of the box and potential to relatively easily add a turbo for 350 without internal engine mods. There are boxes of incidental little bits and pieces too like lights and brackets. Make no mistake there are still parts to be bought or made but the parts here would fill a double garage quite easily. You will not move this all in the back of a Transit in one go. I'd let this lot go for £4500 to a member. If I decide to go the ebay route I'll be splitting things up to get significantly more (the wheels alone are about £1000 worth IF you can find a set). Pictures are do-able but it's sort of buried behind other stuff and there is so much that unless you want the vaguest of overview shots let me know what parts in particular you are interested in. Iain

I enquired a while back and yes they are not cheap. Hi Iain, Thanks for your enquiry, we have a batch of head kits going through at the moment. Some of these are already sold. The range of cam profiles are endless really. If you have something in mind, which is not on our list, then we can always get some cams done for you at no extra cost. The cost of modifying the pistons would £95.00 + vat. We do not supply an exhaust manifold with the kit, as we cannot be sure of the car its going in, but we can at an extra cost of £500 supply an Escort type , rally or big bore race. There is a small amount of machining to do to fit the kit, but we could this for you also. We could of coarse carryout the conversion also if required. The cost of this would depend on a number of things, but the above costs would be included in the conversion. This would be approx. £2250 inc dyno set-up . So as to cost of the full kit, the current cost is £6000.00 + vat. On your current bottom end (depends on spec. ) would produce from 220 BHP upwards with Min of 190lbsft torque. This can be improved on, but its all down to engine spec. to start with. Our 2.4 all steel units are now producing over 300BHP. I hope this is all useful, should you have any more questions please ask. OK regards Phil Price www.connaughtengines.co.uk

Definitely an Essex - the dizzy is at the front. On a Cologne it would be at the rear. Personally I like them but they are becoming more rare should you need anything and fitting a 5-speed box isn't as easy as with a cologne. I too would question that being a Robin Hood - it's clearly a spaceframe with panels riveted on and very few Hoods were built that way. Iain