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Post by Patrick on Apr 14, 2011 21:58:24 GMT
Congratulations! ;D
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kenr
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Post by kenr on Apr 14, 2011 23:09:40 GMT
Congratulations on both counts Joe.
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stefan
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Post by stefan on Apr 15, 2011 5:43:44 GMT
Well done that man
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spunkymonkey
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Post by spunkymonkey on Apr 15, 2011 22:48:59 GMT
Thanks everyone Had a small play today with the niggles and she's now several hundred percent better (not that she seemed that bad before!) Stripped and cleaned the carb again to get rid of (hopefully) the last of the dried '70s fuel varnish. She now runs and idles happily off choke with a fairly steady idle at 700 rpm (slow enough to put her in gear while running!) She also has a kick-down and the difference in her hill ability is startling. There's a steady 1/2 mile stretch on the A55 that she crawled up at about 45 yesterday, today she positively flew up at just short of 60! The poor cranking when hot has been fairly definitely traced to the main engine earth strap so need to pick up a replacement there but if she does complain then a couple of minutes cooling gets her playing again so it's no big problem for now. Finally, the weird instrument fault happened again today but I had a good dig round under the dash and couldn't find why, nor could I get her to do it again. So with luck it was a dodgy spade connection that all the wriggling has made good again. Will have to keep an eye on that one for now though. Oh, and she's now down to £9.87 per mile overall ;D
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kenr
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Post by kenr on Apr 16, 2011 16:45:38 GMT
Don't you just love the little non-major fault finding adventures? All part of the bonding process.
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spunkymonkey
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Post by spunkymonkey on Apr 16, 2011 18:02:52 GMT
I do - especially when you can actually test drive when they're done (well, that's my excuse - nothing to do with the nice weather ). She now has tunes ready for Sian taking her over while Betty's tidied up courtesy of an Alba MP3 speaker set from Argos - it actually looks quite fitting in the centre of the under-dash shelf so may well become permanent I've also re-adjusted the doors to get rid of the slight rattle over bumps from the driver's one and the cooling breeze from the top of the passenger's. Have to get Betty done fast now before Sian takes too much of a liking to Tilly - she's already asked if Betty will be as quiet when I've finished
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33grinder
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Post by 33grinder on Apr 16, 2011 18:13:56 GMT
Hmm, best equip Betty with a louder stereo me thinks...
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spunkymonkey
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Post by spunkymonkey on Apr 16, 2011 18:46:07 GMT
Hmmmm. Just took her for a quick test up the A55 for the door seals (definite improvement ) and she's shown me a new mode of "throttle stuck full open". Cable's fine, return spring's fine but the bell-crank the cable connects to is a little loose on it's rivet. Which allows it to twist and get the end of the cable stuck against the side of the carb. So that'll be the next job then.
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pauldaf44
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Post by pauldaf44 on Apr 16, 2011 18:54:00 GMT
I know that experience its not a pleasant one glad it didn't cause too much of a problem
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33grinder
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Post by 33grinder on Apr 16, 2011 19:31:43 GMT
She's bound to throw up little problems having spent so long off the road, but no harm done is the main thing. Just think of it as a little 'thank you' present for restoring her as she knows you enjoy tinkering.
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spunkymonkey
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Post by spunkymonkey on Apr 17, 2011 20:35:01 GMT
True, Pete. And so far there's been nothing to cause any real alarm She's now done 108 miles since Thursday afternoon and seems to be giving an easy 35mpg - possibly more seeing as the first 60 miles of that were with the carb playing up. So, after mowing the grass this afternoon, I treated her bonnet to a little tlc with polishing compound. Can you tell where I've done yet? With a (quite a) bit more time and effort, this was the view from the driver's seat: Now, before I go any further, I thought I should post a close-up pic of the "true" finish she's ended up with. Photos online always make paint look better than it really is, so doing this I'm not raising expectations too high for people who meet her in person It's certainly not perfect, but I don't dare cut it back any further to get rid of those last patches of peel seeing as the whole car was done with 2 1/2 litres of paint so I have no idea how thick it is! So, how does it look in practice? This is now the driver's view: and this is for anyone passing by: Now I just have to resist waxing that paint until I've done the rest of her - which is going to take a lot of hours of rubbing!
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33grinder
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Post by 33grinder on Apr 17, 2011 22:13:22 GMT
She's looking lurvely Joe. All that polishing is the fun bit - (almost) instant gratification and well worth it. Carefull not to do too good a job of it right now, otherwise you'll be setting high expectations with Sian for Betty's remedial work!
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spunkymonkey
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Post by spunkymonkey on Apr 18, 2011 14:41:49 GMT
Looks fantastic Joe....WELL DONE! Now.. .time to hand over the keys to Sian and get cracking on Betty. John Awwww, but, but, but, but....... ;D
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Bob Scrivens
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Post by Bob Scrivens on Apr 18, 2011 21:23:46 GMT
Now Joe you know the Test Pilot has got to check it out and sign the 700 fit for use He He
Bob
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spunkymonkey
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Post by spunkymonkey on Apr 18, 2011 21:53:36 GMT
I know, Bob, but I'm finding it hard to snag her for anything. The techs seem to have done the job right for a change
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Bob Scrivens
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Post by Bob Scrivens on Apr 20, 2011 21:53:32 GMT
Well Joe, at least we are having the good weather for crawling under our mounts and getting them ready for another year of motor meetings.
Bob
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spunkymonkey
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Post by spunkymonkey on Apr 23, 2011 22:03:17 GMT
Didn't expect to be updating this one so soon but, if you've seen Betty's thread, you'll know that Matilda got towed home behind a Triumph yesterday thanks to a broken prop shaft. This is the propshaft in question: The planned solution was to fit Betty's then pull Isabel's out for Betty then find a replacement (or try to repair one) for Isabel. But, before doing that I wanted to be as certain as possible that it wasn't a fault with the car that had led to failure of what had looked like a perfectly serviceable propshaft. If you remember back on this thread, I had found it difficult to fit the prop and someone obviously had the same trouble in the past because they'd ever so slightly hammered the prop to get it into place. A quick check with the spline from the broken shaft showed that the splines themselves were a nice easy fit, so that suggested an alignment problem. But I'd checked all the mounts and even replaced the missing bushes. More investigation was needed, so out came the back seats and off came the vario covers. Comparing and measuring against Betty confirmed that the back end of the primary seemed to be sitting about 3/4 inch higher on Matilda than on Betty. Obviously, this would make the shaft at the front point downwards and the rubber on the prop would have to bend like crazy to avoid it pointing down through the floor rather than forwards towards the engine! A bit more digging found this, which I hadn't noticed when working on her - but then I wasn't really looking for it then: For those who don't know the A bodied cars, that tube on the vario support is supposed to be straight. It looks like someone in the past (same guy with the prop hammer???) has jacked her up underneath the primary unit and bent the support! It's all well finding the problem, but how do you solve it (preferably without removing the vario)? This seemed to work.... Jack car up and hook a ratchet strap onto the bent support bar. Hook other end onto a length of angle iron and trap the angle under axle stands. Lower car onto the stands and tighten the ratchet, using a trolley jack to work the handle so you can really get some tension in it Managed to drop the back end by about 1/2 inch and the remaining 1/4 inch doesn't seem to affect the prop fitting - with the engine in it now slides freely on the splines so can't have any significant misalignment any more. So, job done but another day and a half behind on Betty's already tight schedule. All because someone over 30 years ago put a jack where he shouldn't have. Amateur mechanics, doncha just love 'em?
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spunkymonkey
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Post by spunkymonkey on Apr 23, 2011 22:57:41 GMT
I have been known to pull steering alignment / inner wings back after front-end smashes (not by me, I hasten to add) using a similar technique but with a handy tree in place of the angle iron ;D
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33grinder
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Post by 33grinder on Apr 23, 2011 23:01:55 GMT
I have been known to pull steering alignment / inner wings back after front-end smashes (not by me, I hasten to add) using a similar technique but with a handy tree in place of the angle iron ;D A visit to Essex is long overdue Joe! ;D Nice work there, good problem solving!
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spunkymonkey
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Post by spunkymonkey on Jun 23, 2011 22:35:26 GMT
Got a puzzling little fault with the red one right now, so any suggestions (or experience of the same) gratefully received. Over the past couple of weeks, she's started showing an occasional (and unpredictable) tendency to lock the l/h rear wheel under braking. It happens with "normal" brake effort and gives a nice ( ?) squeal from the tyre combined with a sudden twitch to the side - haven't crossed the centre line yet but it's a little worrying when it happens. The thing is, it's not the brakes. I know that because a couple of days ago I tried pulling the hill descent knob out at about 25mph and it did the same (briefly) as it changed down. So, it seems that the vario on that side is sometimes changing down too quickly, to the point that it's losing traction as a result. Belts look ok, all the vacuum lines are in place and the diaphragms are sound. It also works perfectly well at all other times (changing up and down as you'd expect) So any ideas???
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spunkymonkey
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Post by spunkymonkey on Jun 24, 2011 16:59:25 GMT
Problem traced. Not 100% sure what I'm going to do about it before CiTP next weekend and the Essex meet a couple of weekends after that but...
The squeal is from the driver (RH) side, not the LH and the swerve that way is just because it's dropping down through the ratios way too fast on the right. Pretty sure the squeal is the belt protesting rather than the tyre!
Having seen what it's doing, a bit of gentle investigation found that it's not holding vacuum on one side of the RH primary (the short pipe - guessing the inner chamber??). It's not the diaphragm because it holds fine on the other pipe. I'd assume that means that, when vacuum is moved to the outside by the brake control the inner chamber is venting too fast and not giving any sort of damping effect, which lets the pulley spread very rapidly indeed. Nice little video to follow.....
Most likely workaround for next week will be to either disable the "braking" change-down completely or introduce a controlled leak (read small hole) to the change-down rubber pipe on that side as an attempt at balancing things up a little. Don't think I'll have time to pull the unit, source seals, strip it and rebuild inside a week!
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spunkymonkey
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Post by spunkymonkey on Jun 24, 2011 17:27:00 GMT
As promised....
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33grinder
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Post by 33grinder on Jun 24, 2011 18:23:31 GMT
I'm wondering whether Gavina has a touch of that Joe. What a boon to be able to lift that panel and see it in action when driven, rather than below a ramp.
I'm sure you will conjour up a suitable workaround, would be a shame not to see her in CiTP.
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spunkymonkey
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Post by spunkymonkey on Jun 24, 2011 18:29:45 GMT
Oh, she'll be there, Pete, even if I have to brake very carefully indeed through the mountains
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spunkymonkey
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Post by spunkymonkey on Jun 24, 2011 23:22:24 GMT
Another one for your enjoyment - a little longer this time and a little delayed by me working out how to do PiP editing ;D If you look really carefully you can see the differential effect in action in a couple of places. Watching the belts in the secondaries it's also quite surprising how quickly she starts to change up!
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Post by dafdaffer on Jun 24, 2011 23:44:35 GMT
hi joe cracking video.... i would look at the weights, i had a simuilar problem with my 66 and the weights were getting stuck in the spring as it been fitted wrong.
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33grinder
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Post by 33grinder on Jun 25, 2011 11:09:28 GMT
I'm sure a man of your engineering calibre will soon have it remedied Joe. Glad to see the weather gods were smiling on you!
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spunkymonkey
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Post by spunkymonkey on Jun 25, 2011 17:34:05 GMT
Spent a good chunk of this afternoon trying various restrictions and air bleeds in the vacuum system to try and suppress the problem while still allowing some vacuum response to the brakes and / or kick-down but all I succeeded in doing was transferring the squeal to the other side by making the r/h vario respond slower than the left ;D So I've settled for disconnecting and plugging the "change down" vacuum line at the engine end. That allows all the rest of the system to work correctly but means little or no engine braking (basically like not changing down in a manual) and an inoperative hill descent control. I considered re-plumbing the brakes to bypass the valve - which would allow manual selection using the dash control - but that seemed a bit much for a temporary cure. Luckily I tend not to drive down hills like a nutter anymore
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spunkymonkey
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Post by spunkymonkey on Jun 26, 2011 12:20:28 GMT
I've been looking closely at the workshop manual diagrams (which aren't 100% clear on this) and am I right in thinking that, for "change up" effect the vacuum is applied to the outside of the bellows because of the way it operates through a diaphragm spring? If so, the leak will be on the control pipe seals rather than the (sliding O ring) inner one which means it might just be possible to do with the unit in-situ.......
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andrew
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Post by andrew on Jun 26, 2011 16:45:59 GMT
If you're using the Autobooks workshop manual there's an error in one of the pictures in the section concerning the transmission; the diagram gives the impression that BOTH vacuum pipes open into the INNER chamber (diagram 6.3, page 56) whereas in reality one opens into each chamber. the test that the vacuum is OK is that the vacuum in the INNER chamber should not be lost at a rate greater than 25mm (1 inch) of mercury per minute. These kind of tests can be done this the primaries in situ, but the belts would have to be off. Your idea of not having any engine vacuum braking is not one I'd entertain, as the car may well end up in the wrong ratio (gear) when you come to move off again from rest.
Just a thought!
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