bodders1
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Urgent: Co-driver needed
bodders1 replied to bodders1's topic in Round Britain Reliability Run (RBRR)
Update: replacement co-driver sorted. No all I have to do is fix the misfire that has developed since I changed the HT components last weekend, and we'll be good to go. -
Hi Docwad - are you still looking for a drive? I've just lost my co-driver!
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With 2 days to go until the start, my co-driver has just tested positive for C-19. Urgently need a replacement co-driver. If anyone fancies a drive in a mildly "sorted" Spitfire, let me know ASAP, otherwise car 53 will have to withdraw.
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I agree with everything Rob says - this is a rear body loom. It should have a substantial connector on the end (and be a bit longer). When fitted to the car, it has to pass thorugh the cross-member under the passenger seat. The connector on the forward end is too large to fit though the holes so it should be threaded - carefully - from the front to the back. It looks like whoever removed it from the car couln't be bothered with unthreading all the wires from the boot end forwards, and took a shortcut by cutting thorugh the loom. As it appears in your picture, the first branch in the middle of your picture is the part that runs across behind the boot board and connects to your fuel tank sender and boot light. The remaining brankch (reading left to right) is LH light cluster, number plate light, and RH light cluster. It looks like it has been cut at a point where the loom leaves the floorpan and passes over the rear wheelarch, where the branch should emerge that runs to the seatbelt switches and the pressure sensor in the passenger seat. This https://www.canleyclassics.com/triumph-spitfire-mkiv/1500-body-harness-and-main-harness shows how this part of the loom should run. Hope this helps Bodders1
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Hi Richard I took my Spitfire to SRE to get the twin Dellortos set up. I was very impressed with Neil's thoroughness, and his patience in explaining each test/adjustment as he went along. The drive home was fun - especially in accelleration with the accellerator pumps and carb balance correctly adjusted cheers bodders
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Give Neil Slark a call. Really nice guy. ...and you get to drive home along the A303 and try out your new tuning set up http://www.slarkraceengineering.co.uk/
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Not exactly - your starter cable is designed to cope with the starter motor's STALL CURRENT. i.e the maximum current the motor will draw when it is stationary. The limiting factor in this case may well be the battery's own maximum current - usually printed on the battery as a CCA number (Cold Cranking Amperes). This is what the cable to your starter motor must be able to cope with, and for standard fitment batteries on Triumph cars can be anything between 360 and 700 Amps. Once the engine is turning over (even if it is not firing) the current drawn by the starter is less than the stall current. Your measurement of 120 Amps will be the rated load current once the engine is turning over. Here is a good page for calculating the size of cable you will need from the alternator back to the battery: http://www.solar-wind.co.uk/cable-sizing-DC-cables.html Enter the percentage loss that you can put up with at maximum current draw (2 or 3 percent is acceptable) and the length of the cable run in metres (I'm guessing 1 metre) and it will tell you the cable size required for the job. 3% loss over 1 metre equates to a 16mm2 cable cross-section (or 5 AWG in old money). Hope this helps. bodders1
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Had this problem in my first Spitfire. Before panicking about oil-pump or bottom-end rebuilds. try replacing the oil pressure sender. When they fail, they have exactly this pattern of flickering oil light on hot idle which gradually gets worse. Then they start a tell-tale trickle of oil out the back of the sender. An oil pressure gauge will give you an absolute view on what is really happening, but replacing the sender first is a quick and potentially cheap way to peace of mind. (£5.10 from Canleys, part number GPS117)
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I suspect that he is referring to an accellerator pump that richens the mixture as you press the throttle pedal, before the airflow has risen sufficiently to pull more fuel thorugh the main jet. It is intended to conteract the tendency of the mixture to go lean if the throttle is opened quickly. It works by squirting a measured amount of fuel straight into the airflow, usually on the downstream side of the throttle butterfly. These sort of pumps are fitted on Weber and Dellorto carbs, among others. There are two possibilities here: 1) that the pump is broken, so you are getting a very lean mixture on sudden accelleration, or 2) that someone has fiddled wit the callibration of the pump so you are getting too rich a mixture on sudden accelleration. You would need to get the original spec of your carb/engine combination and then recalibrate the pump to deliver the right amount of fuel when the throttle is pressed all the way down. There's a section on this in Des Hammill's book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Build-Power-Tune-Weber-Dellorto-Carburettors-Speedpro/dp/1903706750
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Yup - exactly what Nick has said. These are all items on the fused circuit controlled by the ignition switch. Pop out the fuses and inspect & clean them thoroughly. If the fuse has blown, you need to look for a short circuit in the green wires behind the dashboard. You say that you've had all the dash out perhaps you've trapped one of the green wires behid the dash (this is the circuit that isn't working). If've you've had the rav counter out, have you reconnected the wires to the right terminals? There are are two spade terminals on the back of the rev-counter; one is the +12v feed (green wire) and the other is an unused earth terminal - I once accidentally put the +12 feed on the wrong terminal on the rev counter and blew the fuse causing the exact symptoms you describe. You should also invest in a can of contact cleaner from Mapilns and thoroughly clean the fuse holders while the fuses are out. Hope this helps. bodders1
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there are 3 fixings. All are 1/4 UNF thread. The two at the back of the cowl would originally have been short lengths of stud screwed into the cowl itself , with a washer and nut to hold it into the bonnet assembly. The fiddly one at the side of the cowl is a set screw 3/8 in length. Part number is SH604031. If you google this part number you will find it gets used in lots of different British Classics - for instance the timing cover on an Austin A-series engine.
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Check the wiper switch. It should normally provide a +12v supply when the wipers are on, and then break the supply when you turn the wipers off. It sounds like, in addition to breaking the supply, it is somehow also connecting the wiper motor supply to 0v. Remeber that the self-park mechanism has a separate +12v feed from the ignition switch that by-passes the wiper switch. What I think is happening here is that when you turn the wipers off, the self-park mechanism is continuing to provide +12v to the moter and, inherently, also to the wire going back up to the wiper-switch. If there is a short in the switch when it is in the "off" position, it would cause a very high current via the self-park mechanism and blow the fuse. Presumably, you have a two-speed wiper motor. Disconnect the plug at the wiper motor and identify the 3 wires that come in to that connector from the ignition switch (blue/light green, red/light green, & brown/light green). With the ignition off and the wiper switch in the off position, use a continuity tester to check for any connectivity between each of these wires and battery 0v - there should not be any. If any of these wires show that they are connected to earth, then the fault is most likely to be in the wiper switch itself. Hope this helps
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Which part of Hampshire? If anywhere near M3, try Roe Engineering in Fleet. They have a very good reputation locally.
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Where's the fun in that? Nothing beats burping petrol fumes for a couple of hours after priming the fuel line 'old school' style ;-)
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Take a look a Marcus's pictures near the top of this thread. There are 3 different rocker covers placed side by side for comparison. The middle one is wider and lower than the other two. That is the one Marcus is referring to.
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I have a hi-torque starter (from a scrapped Isuzu Trooper) fitted to my moderately-modded Spit 1500. To get the right offset, with the the engine and gearbox assembled, I measured the distance though the starter hole from the face of the engine back-plate to the edge of the ring gear, then I measured the offset of the pinion from the front face of the starter, and finally the "throw" of the starter (by energising its solenoid on the bench with a set of jump-leads), then calculated the thickness of spacer required to give a good meshing of the gears at full throw, and a reasonable clearance at rest (I think I chose 1.5mm as an arbitrary figure). I then took a standard Lucas spacer along to a friendly local engineering firm and got it turned down to the right thickness (8.5mm from memory) for a fiver in cash and an nice packet of biscuits for their next tea-break.
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Alternator on the way out. Reconditioned Lucas ACR series alternators are cheap enough on an exchange basis from pretty-much any motor factor not to bother with the aggro of sourcing the rectifier/regulator components and then attempting a home repair only for another part of the alternator to fail in a few months time. On the other-hand, since it's an MG, just scrap the car ;-)
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4277 wrote:Possibly the clutch plate is stuck to the flywheel ..... Take your handbrake off, put the car in gear and try to start it. ...with the clutch pedal pressed to the floor.
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bhuffer wrote: Best thing to do is replace the ballast resitor wire with a 12 volt feed via the ignition switch and change the coil to match. ...but only if you intend to fit electronic ignition, or your existing resistor wire has failed. If it is currently working as designed, why "fix" it when it doesn't need fixing? The whole idea behind ballast resistors and lower voltage coils was to give you a normal spark under normal running conditions, and a fatter spark with more "oomph" when cold starting. If you dispense with the ballast resistor and go over to a standard 12v system, you are losing this benefit.
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Alternatively, have a look at Landrover spares listings on eBay. Series III Landrovers used the same sort of pull-switch. For some bizarre reason, LR spares seem to be cheaper than Triumph spares.
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4526 wrote:The really best thing to do is put relays inbetween the headlights .. then you can't have a burned out dash switch .. (my uncle had that in his TR6 in the late 70's , just after he changed to halogens) I've never really understood this piece of received wisdom. A 55W quartz-halogen bulb draws exactly the same current as a 55W tungsten bulb so the current passing through the switch is the same. So why does the change to halogen bulbs necessitate adding relays to the circuit? There *are* other good reasons to add relays such as 1) doing a lot more night driving (e.g. RBRR) when the headlights will be on for considerably longer periods than normal 2) putting higher wattage bulbs into the lights (of questionable legality in Britain but quite a lot of people have done it (whistle) ) 3) adding additional spotlamps on the main beam circuit. bodders1
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HS2s will be fine for pootling around town. The whole lot will get a bit asthmatic when pushed into higher revs. The key difference between HS2s and HS4s is and extra 1/4 inch diameter on each of the throttles. By my rough calculations, that extra 1/4 inch equates to nearly 50% more cross-sectional area in the throttles for air to be sucked through when the engine as at full-chat. Of course, upgrading to HS4s is not suddenly going to unleash 50% more power because there are many other factors in play, such as the effect of turbulence in the carbs, the jetting, the throttle spindle getting in the way of the airflow, the type of exhaust fitted, the flow efficiency of the head itself, etc..
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HS2s will be fine for pootling around town. The whole lot will get a bit asthmatic when pushed into higher revs. The key difference between HS2s and HS4s is and extra 1/4 inch diameter on each of the throttles. By my rough calculations, that extra 1/4 inch equates to nearly 50% more cross-sectional area in the throttles for air to be sucked through when the engine as at full-chat. Of course, upgrading to HS4s is not suddenly going to unleash 50% more power because there are many other factors in play, such as the effect of turbulence in the carbs, the jetting, the throttle spindle getting in the way of the airflow, the type of exhaust fitted, the flow efficiency of the head itself, etc..
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Hi JP Some people do change to a modern fuse box, but it is a long and complex job, and a future owner may not thank you for making such a major alteration to the car's wiring. The fact that you can flash the lights points further to a problem with the feed coming from the fuse box (brown wires). The feed for flashing the headlights is drawn from the other end of the same fuse! (purple wires). Take 5 minutes and try the following: Disconnect the battery then pop the fuses out and and thoroughly clean the end caps of each fuse with fine emery paper. Wrap a piece of fine emery paper around the tip of a small screw-driver and thoroughly clean the contacting faces of the clips in the fuse box. Put the fuses back in, reconnect the battery and test again. This problem is made much worse if you don't have the cover on your fuse-box; many have got lost over the years, allowing the terminals to corrode much faster than they would otherwise.
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Clicking from the box in the rear wheelarch is the night dimming relay - which works off the sidelight circuit and, if still connected, makes your tail lights less bright at night-time as a courtesy to drivers who otherwise might be dazzled by the feeble Lucas lights. How times have changed. The received wisdom is that this should be disconnected (it was never installed on 1500s). This relay has no affect whatsoever on the headlights. If you've checked the switch and connectors in the headlamp circuit, have a look at the fuse box. I know that there are no fuses in the headlight circuit, but the power feed to the lights switch is taken from the battery side of the fuse box. Have a really close look at the clips that hold the fuses in place: the clip at each end of the fuse is made from two pieces of copper (not one folded piece as you might expect) - the feed from the battery is connected to one side of the clip, and the wire leading to the headlamp switch is connected to the other side. There has to be the cap of a fuse in place AND MAKING GOOD ELECTRICAL CONTACT WITH BOTH SIDES OF THE CLIP to complete the circuit and allow the lights to work.
