945 Niggles

[Laird Scooby]

That's good news! You can start to enjoy it now!

[bluebrickrick]

Congrats Joe but as Dave said, find out what they did (unless it was a new Cat in which case owch!)

And in the spirit of this festive season, remember its only eleven months two weeks and a fortnight to the next one...........

No need to think of it as thread hijack, we are all on a learning curve, you younger chaps are busy trying to stuff it in, us old farts are busy trying to stop it trickling out too fast while trying to stuff new stuff in - if that makes any sort of sense.

It was the carb which raced at Brooklands Dave, it is still only on loan (after 35 years in place) its owner bought classic cars at about ten bob a time in his student days and had space and kept them all, on retirement he is working his way through and renovating them all now, two or three Rileys, Austins an MG or two and my favourite a Wolseley Hornet Special (which also raced at Brooklands) and has the entertaining old arrangement of brake and accellerator being transposed, great fun to drive and I am assured, left to me in his will with the carb - unfortunately I know other drinking pals who it is being left to as well

Knew St Faiths fairly well but don't recall the Rover people - without the Land prefix it wouldn't have registered.

Definitely not the nozzle blocked, I took the clip over bit off and despite applying airline pressure at the tailgate and at a joiner near the distributor nothing made it to the other end in either direction - shall have to have a little forage when its a shade warmer - Citric acid is even better than vinegar BTW. I also keep a tin of pin printer pins for poking out tiny blocked holes, if you see a pre jet printer grab it, gas jets, water jets, spray cans etc etc.

I took the other failed washer pump apart this evening and it had got a bit of grot really stuck between two of the teeth of the idling gear, a good scrape out sorted it so I now have a carefully oiled spare for use another time and despite being 1C I managed not to break any of the little snap darts off when opening it up.

Take care in the fog one and all

Rick

[Joe of Loath]

It's a B230E so no cat to replace! Was charged MOT plus three hours labour, £230 all in so a bit painful but about what I was expecting. Apparently he tweaked the fuel mix slightly as it was running too rich before, and says it should be checked and tweaked every now and again. Will change the plugs at the same time I clean the PCV and then I'll be able to see how it's running with a clean PCV just by looking at the plugs.

It was right on the edge of passing; about 3.7% CO (3.5% limit), so he took it down to 2.5%. HC level is very good at 77ppm (1250 limit).

Speaking of classic cars, I had a friend in school whose first car was a 1920s Humber. 45mph top speed, three speed with no synchromesh, and for a 19 year old with a year's driving experience his insurance was less than £200 a year with no tax. Very cool car, although I'm upset that I never got to ride in it. He was working on an Austin 7 but that never got finished.

Also the horn went "Awooga".

[Laird Scooby]

A little painful in the wallet department Joe but at least it's MoT'd now and that ball joint has been done.

As they tweaked the mixture down to 2.5%, even when you clean the PCV etc out, new air filter and plugs, oil and filter change it should remain in the right area afterwards. I suspect that having been a London car, the oil and filter will make the biggest difference with the PCV system being a close second - maybe the other way round though.
Once you've done those jobs you might find it interesting to pop back to the testing station and ask them to put their emissions tester on "Manual" for you for 5 minutes and just find out what the CO is after doing those jobs - think you'll be amazed how much it drops by!

[Joe of Loath]

Yup, little annoyed it still pulls left even after the ball joints were replaced though! Admittedly it's not as bad, but will have to give it another look now.

Good to know it's not going to lean out. The air filter is in good condition (first thing I checked when I opened the bonnet) and the oil is a reasonable colour but I'm sure it's contaminated. It's also been sat a lot - only done 1500 miles in the last year, almost 500 of them mine in a few weeks!

It's just a bit of a battle with the wallet to get it back in good nick so that I don't have to worry about taking it long distances. I'm planning to board the back out (hence the advisory for no rear seats) and sleep in it for camping trips. That way I can roll my sleeping stuff into the rear footwell and put a muddy bike in the back and have it all wipe clean when I get home. That means I'm going to have to be confident driving it to Wales and Yorkshire and Scotland and the likes. Which I'm not, currently.

[Laird Scooby]

Sounds like your tracking is out Joe - before you take it anywhere to get the tracking done, make sure the rack is central.

To do this, find the mid-point of the lock to lock travel on the steering wheel. It's 3.5 turns lock to lock so going from either lock to centre should be 1.75 turns and the steering wheel should be in the straight ahead position at this point. If not remove the steering wheel and reposition it so it is straight ahead in the cetre of the rack. To prove the point once you've done it, turn the wheel from the straight ahead position to each lock and count the turns - they should be equal and 1 3/4 or 1.75 if you prefer each way.

Once you've got this done, take it to get the tracking checked and/or adjusted and you should be ok after, depending on the road surface as some roads have more severe camber than others which will cause pulling.

From the sound of things it would probably pay to change the cam belt as well, fairly easy on the B230 but the PAS and alternator belts have to come off to do it!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dayco-131V...QAAOSww9VXhgq2

They're also not a bank-breaker and as long as you have a few reasonably good tools and a torque wrench you should be able to do it if you follow the procedure in the Haynes manual.

[Joe of Loath]

Will give that a go, thanks. Probably needs an alignment anyway now that I've got -40mm springs on there too.

Cam belt is definitely on the list, although I think I'd want to replace the tensioner as well just in case. I'm very practised at removal and refitting of the drive belts after last weekend!

[Laird Scooby]

If you've got lowered springs on it, don't take it to the likes of Fik-Wit, ATS etc for the tracking then - they only deal with "bog standard" and the tracking will be out now because you've introduced more negative camber by lowering it. Yes it's good for cornering but if the tracking is even a little bit out it will amplify the difference more.

To get it to drive straight with less skittishness you'll probably need to reduce the amount of toe-in slightly because of the altered geometry, i don't know if there's anyone in the Swindon area but Pro-Align in Northampton have a good reputation.

Replacing the tensioner as well as the cam belt is a good idea and i should have linked to a tensioner as well really. However on my last one the tensioner was in good condition so i didn't bother, in fact it was almost new as it had been replaced some time recently before i bought it because the head gasket had been done - badly as well! All the head bolts were loose, luckily i noticed before any damage was done and that showed up a seriously loose cam belt :


(Probably need to click it to play it)

I know it's painful on the wallet to get everything up to scratch, especially on a car that's new to you but once done it's worth it for the "go anywhere, anytime" peace of mind it brings.

[bluebrickrick]

Labour rates are a real killer especially when you add in the tax but not a bad MOT overall for a first time vehicle - any thoughts of a VW camper style rising roof centre for your Swedish Airstream ??

There is a thread somewhere regarding alteration of the top three bolt plate of the front suspension units to correct the geometry change brought about by lowering ride height by spring alteration, AFAIR it changes the centreing of the strut relative to the 3 bolts, not something I intend so have not downloaded.

Don't trust the Haynes manual, it fibs and misleads or just doesn't cover what you want............

[Laird Scooby]

There's a lot of adjustable top bearings for the struts to change the geometry on fleabay Rick, i'm not sure if it's to correct the camber or the castor angle or both but might be worthwhile to look.

I used to have a pop-up camper, looked like a trailer tent until you wound the little handle at the front and the roof rose up from the body, take the door down from the roof, fit it in place then slide out the beds and the canvas sides and turned into a 3 bedroom bungalow on wheels!

Needed restoration though, not least new canvas which was about $1800 from the USA and with everything else i had going on i didn't have the time or money to do it. Might yield a few ideas for a camper conversion in a 740 saloon though!