VitesseEFI

Yeah, but you don’t find all the leaks…, because antifreeze makes leaks

Plain water one is new to me. I have seen it written that some like to do the first start dry and run until just hot enough to melt the glue coating. Judging that makes me twitchy… Alternatively run plain water and cap off so the system can’t be pressurised? Certainly it is true that antifreeze is good at creeping through any gaps Hope it can be resolved without additional effort and expense!

Liked for the car content, not your health problems…. Get well soon & don’t overdo it in the meantime!

That’s the “I have made fire” moment right there. Congratulations on the birth of your “monster” Bloody good work. Looks and sounds the business.

That wiring brings back more (dubious) memories. Mine was bought very cheap (though not nearly cheap enough as it turned out) because it had had a small loom fire under the dash - though one caused by careless welding than an electrical fault. Just at the point where front and rear loom plug together. Ended finding a used front loom locally and repairing the short section of the rear. I carefully removed the font loom, snipping the wires to leave colours visible so I could just swap the replacement in. Trouble was, old and new looms were completely different colours and the Haynes book of lies was different from both of them . This led to about a week of very long evenings puzzling it out. When I finally (very gingerly) connected a battery, literally the only thing that happened was one of the headlight pods winding up and down… continuously. Which led to several more long evenings. That Uno turbo motor…….. my early 1300 could certainly have used some extra grunt. It was desperately slow. Waaaay slower than the Herald 1200 (with 1500 Spitfire running gear) I was mostly using at the time. Lent the Herald to a mate then attempted to keep up with him in the Fiat. It was hopeless. He blew past me on the first straight and next time I saw him, 22 twisty miles later, he’d already got the tea made.

That sounds familiar! Mine was proper rotten. Passenger footwell was filling with water, which turned out to because the wheel tub was in fact nothing but two layers of rubbery under-seal with bran-flakes between…. And a moderately heavy landing after a hump-backed bridge partially detached the front LH suspension turret leading to a lop-sided stance and very odd handling. Fixed that and flogged it on quick! Keep up the good work!

That windscreen surround is giving me flashbacks…… to the horrifically rusty one I owned briefly in the late 80s. Was an early 1300 made in ‘79 so barely 10 years old at the time. Galloping rot was only one of the many issues afflicting that car. Your repairs look good though

This. Hopeless job and charged like a real one.

Cast piston go BOOM indeed. I agree with the failure analysis. Curious on dye-pen results. Also curious about galling on pin bosses, plus whether the relevant BE shell/crank pin looks any different from the others. Plain old material failure of cast piston seems entirely reasonable given the, errr, circumstances and history, and that is what the fracture surface looks like. Any reason why that piston should have been hotter than the others, or just hotter that day? Presumably the top of the rod and gudgeon pin escaped through the hole it made, chased the oil filter housing out into the wide world and remains uncaptured ?

Detective Dave

Somehow I’ve not previously seen this thread… so I’ve just had the jaw-dropping experience of reading it from end to end Bloody hell…… no messing! Thought the block casting was epic… but that sump!! So he goes and makes several This does actually deserve the word AWESOME!

Indeed. Was all looking so good! Does the missing spacer(s) mean that the bolts are bottomed in the crank, so not clamping everything together as should be?

Some interesting work by Alan there. Thanks for finding the links. I’m reminded that I was planning to revisit this using an actual engine, measuring actual valve movement, all relative to crank degrees, with a selection of cams…. I’ve shot myself in the foot by selling the block I was going to use though…. (idiot!)

Cleaning and matching a set of injectors for my son’s sigma SE into Spitfire conversion.

I missed that whole exhaust thing and the “gearboxing” at the time. Just wasted 10 minutes catching up. “Wayno is a total dicko” is my conclusion and eventually got what he deserved. Meanwhile, in the real world, the gearbox scrapyard mission looked very familiar (though these days I’m too old and grumpy to play in the rain). The bellhousing shenanigans also look familiar. I’ve done two conversions to get modernish Jap gearboxes onto Triumph engines. Most recently this https://sideways-technologies.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/8925-mazda-gearboxes-some-bstard-told-me-it-was-impossible-so-i-had-to-do-it/#comments This also used an auto box bellhousing because it had a nice concentric recess and ring of bolts to work with.

Or use coil packs with built in igniters as used on lots of VAG stuff. 4 pot is really easy. 6 pot less common but they do exist. https://lowcostracingsolutions.co.uk/ignition-coilpacks-and-ht-cables/14-wasted-spark-coil-pack-with-internal-igniters.html https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/183509104076?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=pfWVgpugSlK&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=L4l_9R0bRTe&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Got to be possible to get around that provided the g/box input shaft length is in the ballpark. I’ve opened out the centre bore on a couple of my Triumph flywheels to take a small bearing as favoured by Toyota and Mazda. Cheap and fairly easy.

Ah…. Similar to above I’ve seen “flywheels” offered for manual conversions on V8 Audis which retain the flex plate for the ring gear and timing ring , just adding the minimum material to attach a clutch to as a bolt-on extra. Bolts to the crank with the flex plate sandwiched between them. Very light and (relatively) cheap.

Pretty low where I am to be fair

Now summer is here….. thoughts turned to making our picnic table usable. I made it about 14 years ago from nominal 2x4” pressure treated softwood. Some of it turns out to be more effectively treated that others. Casual inspection suggested it was mainly the table top and bench rails that were done (and some were very done) so I optimistically went out and bought some decking timber to resurface it. Then I came back and went to work…. The parallels with car restoration were immediately obvious. Loads of snapped fasteners, and loads of unexpected rot in awkward places. I forgot to take a before pic, so you’ll just have to imagine a well-weathered picnic table….. Part way through, zone of maximum pieces. Devastation. No picnic table recognisable. Thought I was going back to the wood shop…… but careful examination showed that there was easily enough sound timber, in the top and benches ironically, to remake the structure, most of it in fact. Then reassembled, this time sloshing the joint areas (worst rotted, just like cars) with preservative. Here it is…. Even got some ok-ish timber left over. And a lot of crumbling shrapnel.

Not legal to burn used oil in UK without a licence….. £ 2.5k /year. Bastards…..

Is there a “hobby” worth doing that doesn’t make your wallet smoke from time to time? Boat is looking really good now. Quite envious. Sailed a bit in my late teenage, though mostly only dinghies, with a bit of occasional crewing (my version) for someone with a 25 footer around the Solent and IOW. Liked that. If I lived in your part of the world, the temptation would be strong!

Car park based maintenance…. In UK winter. Glad I don’t have to play that game anymore Car looks decent and an unusual colour.

Especially on old British tat from the Coventry area…. ……I’m a Triumph owner, guess how I know this….

Me too…. It will already be worse than you think it is….