steve in stockport

The AA recommend a spare set of bulbs if your driving in France but if French plod pull you for having a light out they expect you to fix it there and then - if you can't they are more than happy to relieve you of some of your French beer tokens with an on the spot fine, but hey what do you expect from people that eat snails! Going over there in june towing a caravan - now that has some good rules - spare bulbs for car and van, gold tow ball and something to do with tyre ratings among others.

what a feeling - I had my maiden voyage last week, 20 feet up the drive then a full afternoon of fettle, tweek, polish, rub then 20 feet in reverse back into the garage. had a stupid grin on my face all the time and loads of comments from neighbours and passers by. the robin hood exhaust noise works a treat for waking up hung over student layabouts - next doors lad was not pleased - tee hee!!!

yes, if you're not running a heater the pipe from the manifold will go back to the water pump. once it returns there it mixes with the remainder (majority) of the coolant to be pumped through the rad then back into the bottom of the engine. so if your pump works there is a continuous process where cool coolant enters the engine through the bottom hose, passes through the waterways in the block, head, manifold etc picking up heat as it goes. the heated coolant then passes through the pump to the radiator where it is cooled as it drops to the bottom hose, then it all begins again

the water is pumped out of the bottom of the rad, through the engine then out of both the top hose to the rad and the inlet manifold, through the heater and back to the top of the water pump. sounds like you have very little circulation, so if your stat is new, tested and in the right way around the thing that gives you circulation - the pump -is the next place to look steve

sounds like your thermostat is either duff or fitted the wrong way round. as the pinto warms up the water is circulated round the pump, head, inlet manifold and heater( if fitted) til the water is hot enough to open the stat, it then goes round the whole system. just a little heat on the rad side looks like water struggling to get through the stat for one of the above reasons. steve

I've fitted a seat marbella rad on a wishbone 2b, sits upright at the front of the chassis. not on the road yet so not been used in anger but seems to cope ok. haven't fitted a heater so the system only has 10 pints of water in it and stood running on the drive for 30 mins in the hot manchester sun (23 degrees!) on monday with no ill effects. I'm going to change the fan switch for a cooler one as the vauxhall one i used operates at 100 degrees- still well inside the norm range on a sierra dash. either follow big jim's link to the rads page on the nw hoodie site, it's at the bottom of the page or pm or mail me for more info and all the photos. steve

flea you haven't said what pressure rad cap you are using, early sierra caps operate between 12 and 16lb (13lb cap?) and later ones at 15 to 18lb (15lb cap?). apparently for every one pound increase in cap pressure you raise the boiling point of the coolant by 3 degrees - so maybe a higher pressure cap might help. some motorsport teams use 21lb caps so they can thrash their motors without them boiling but that might just hide a problem til it causes serious damage to your engine and your wallet! do you know the temp range of the switch for your fan? pop down to your local spares shop and check the ranges in the books for switches with the same fittings as yours - these can vary by as much as 20 degrees so you can choose when your fan cuts in steve

hi cwing the best place i found for p-clips is maplins the electronics shop - they have shops all over the place or you can buy online. white nylon/plastic clips start at about £1.00 per 100 for the smallest size. or pm me with your address and will send you some - i've got about 50 left for brake lines and 8mm copper fuel pipes steve

i'm experimenting with a seat marbella radiator at the moment, fits vertical right at the front of the chassis on a wishbone 2b,it's a two core aluminium job, the connections are the same size as the sierra and in roughly the right places. got it fastened to a nissan micra expansion bottle and i'm tryin to find a front mounted fan to blow through it. this set up will give me shed loads of room between the rear of the rad and the engine for other odds and sods - will keep you posted with how I get on. steve

peril it might not be bad news all the way - you say that you've just finished running in but you don't say if you re-torqued the head bolts after the engine was run up to operating temp for the very first time after the rebuild. suggest you whip the head off, put back on with new gasket and bolts run it up to temp then while it's still hot take the cam cover off and re-torque the head bolts - they expand when the engine is hot! once it's cooled you have to reset the tappets(cam followers) then refit the cam cover - thats what mr haynes says to do. good luck steve