IanS

There is no correct way to mount the nose. But there are plenty of wrong ones. The nose is not structrual so it only needs a light mounting. Having said that I am a believer in at least 3 point mounting and have used 4 in my car. The nose as supplied has no indication of mounting and needs clearance round the suspension in some models. So if I was in your place I would make 2 mounting brackets for the top of the nose and set these so that the bonnet lies correctly. The existing mountings then could need adjusting. Then holes would need cutting to allow for suspension movement. These kits are cheep because it is left to the builder to do many of these finishing details. The early build manuals had only the basics. The videos (introduced November 96) also ignored many details.

Careful with shorting out resistors. These are often there as a safety feature to limit current and sparks. Having said that there is not normally enough oxygen in a petrol tank to ignite.

If the sparks are from the wire itself you are doing something I cant explain. But I think that the sparks come from a connection in the wire. The large starting current in the main wire will cause sparks at any badly made connection and generate a lot of heat. The connections in the main power leads that carry the starting current need to have clean mateing surfaces and a largish contact area and a large contact force. Clean up the offending surfaces with a fine file (sand paper leaves grit behind to spoil all your work), tighten the clamp bolt and the sparks should vanish.

Just a thought. A lot of backup memories need about 1.2V min to remember. Add in the volt drop of a regulator and you get a min of 2V to keep alive the momory.

You dont realy need it. But the comon reason for them to go wobbly is the nylon reinforcement ring drops out from under the bulge. It then sits doing nothing round the lower gear lever. If it has not been cut off it can be superglued back. Or of course you can shorten the lever and do away with the bulge altogether.

Every Exmo came with that bearing. We just assumed that everyone knew about it as the front suspension is realy the most comon type and all Mc Phearson strut suspensions have a bearing there.

The majority of mechanical speedos are 1000rpm (revs per mile). The gear in the gearbox vaires to take into account the diff ratio and wheel size, ford colour codes them but I have forgotten the code. They are easy to replace if you can change the speedo cable.... If you have not provided access to change the speedo cable then its a gearbox out job. Ian

Flashing in daylight with lights switched off should only bring on main beam. It does on all the cars I have worked on.

One other point the RH methode of shortening the propshaft useing the front half only was not reliable. Get a propper 2 UJ propshaft the 1 UJ and rubber donut arangement did not last long. Ian

The alternator is only a very low mechanical load at cranking speed so it will not slow the starter down that way. This leaves the alternator having shot diodes and shorting a large part of the charge to earth. In this case I would not expect the battery to hold a charge. It is posible to rebuild an alternator yourself but probably cheeper to go to your local autoelectrician for an exchange item. A quick test for blown (to short circuit) diodes is to take a sidelight bulb and with the alternator disconnected conect the bulb from the battery live to the big terminal on the alternator, If the alternator is OK no current will flow and the bulb stays dark. If the bulb lights up change the alternator. The alternator body of corse should be connected to the battery negative. Ian

There are a number of people that have ditched the servo. You just need to make up a new push rod from the pedle to the master cylinder, though I have herd that Tiger have just such an item listed. The second mod is to go for softer brake pads. Ian

Assuming the lights were Ok in the donor then I would suspect poor conections in your wireing somewhere. A voltmeter helps here. Is there 12 to 14V going into the bulbs when they are on. If not then suspect wireing in the light switch. Then check if the 0V to the bulb remains at 0 volts to the battery - terminal, if there are volts here then bad earths are the problem. If there is 12V directly accross the bulb and it is still dim then it is too low a watage. Just one thing as bulbs age they sometimes evaporate thier filament onto the inside of the glass it looks silver/black and the light cant get out. solution is replace with nice clear new ones. Ian

Hi Fi power is a bit of a con. The only true way to measure power is continuous RMS with sine excitation. BUT by taking instantanious peak power you get more impressive numbers. When I built my first Hi Fi 35 years ago a genuine 30 watts was very loud in a car. Since then 30 watts appears to be got out of a 9V battery that then lasts for days, something has gone wrong with chemistry and maths in these add prone days. You can get devices to add the power from 2 sources, they are called transformers with 2 primaries and a single secondary. Unfortunatly the price of one to do the job you want will be high as very few firms now make wide bandwith audio transformers and what you want is probably now a made to order device. Also modern speakers are small and handle the power by turning most of it to heat not sound. Time to get off my high horse.

I have always found araldite to be the only satisfactory glue for petrol if much of a gap is to be bridged. Blue hylomar is fine when it is under pressure as between a gasket and metal but has little structural strength bonding things together.

I have done 35000 miles now on unleaded with a totaly unmodified 83 2l pinto. There have been no problems with the valves. Shame that the sump is now a bit bent from hitting a sleeping policeman! Ian

Could the white be a feed from the lights to dim the display at night?

Eratic tachos are often associated with poor earthing of the engine or the instrument. The instrument cluster will require a short earth lead to the nearest chasies point. Body panels will require good earthing to the chasies (pop rivets every few inches will normally provide this. The engine will require an earth strap to the chasies as well as a strap to the battery negative. Ian

Uncle Henry fitted an normal incandesant bulb as high beam indicator. They dont care which polarity they are connected and so will absorb the back EMF with no ill effects. So Uncle Henry has saved the price of a diode times Xmillion sierras produced.

One of the plugs could be breaking down. I have had new plugs that were bad. Try changing them one at time for the best looking old one that you have.

If you have a 2l engine I would not worry to much about the engine size of the donor. If its a 4 pot the gearbox will fit (V6 has a diferent gearbox input shaft) and everything mechanical will swap across. Just tell the DVLA that you have fitted the 2l engine to the donor before you start to get the V5 correct.

My imediate reaction is that the diffs are not the same ratio. Did you ever check your speedo reading against another car? You should be able to check the ratio of the diff you took off easily, mark the output flanges and check that they are both rotating together when you turn the input flange. Count the input turns to turn the output exactly once. If the outputs will not both turn together then lock one and count the input turns to turn the free output exactly twice. This will give you the diff ratio. You can do the same to the diff on the car its just a bigger job, jack one wheel off the floor, mark the bottom of the tyre and with the gearbox in neutral you should be able to turn the input by hand and again count the turns to turn the free wheel twice (the other rear wheel is on the ground and will not turn). From your rolling road you should have a power out curve. If the power is the same for 4k and 4.5to4.8k revs (4th and 5th) then the top out speed will be the same and peak speed will be reached with an overall gear ratio between 4th and 5th. Ian

Near side wheel runs in the gutter and throws up all the crap that gets washed there. Drive in the center of the road :boohoo:

Most car wheels are in the 13 to 15 inch rim diameter. So these machines tend to assume 14 inch and the error over the normal range of sizes is smaller than the normal setting tolerance.

5.5mm should be the difference in the distance appart of the front of the wheel rim verses the distance appart of the rear of the wheel rim. So if you know the wheel diameter 14inch?? then you can work out the angle. Ian

My understanding is that the fan should only come on after the thermostat is fully open and before the coolant boils.. So a switch in the range of 76 to 95 should do the job. Point 2 any sender that actually is a switch should easily energise a relay so go ahead and substitute or even connect in parallel so that you can force the fan on. I say any sender that is actually a switch because some computer controlled systems use the temp sender and software to control the fan. Ian