Baxter

Fun event. I turned up late to avoid the queues and already had my day made by spotting these two Telford beauties in the car park. Thanks! Got a couple of good parts needed for my Vitesse. Had half hoped to find a bunch of bits for my MG ZT as that's far more trouble than my Triumphs but only seemed to be MGF/TF bits from that era.

Thanks everyone. Got home late last night - 20hrs after first contacting the RAC. Feeling at a bit of a loose end today, though of course I have plenty of jobs here on my other 2 cars. Good luck to everyone still running!

I'm not sure there is a connection between the puddle and the plug...just that 10 years and 12,000 miles after a full rebuild that was the precise moment it let go. Plunging hot metal into cold water?

In the morning we found the plug in the suspension turret. RAC man happily hammered it flat, saying it was too small/loose, then made a tight hylomar fit into the block. Coolant refilled and the engine warmed up sweetly. But clearly pressure could be felt building in the radiator hoses so suspect head gasket failure between cylinder and water jacket. Cause or effect of the ejected plug? Seems it could be either. Flatbed recovery confirmed at that point.

I'll report back when I redo the head but that will have to be a while. Things were getting quite hot by the time I found somewhere safe to pull over so I'll be checking head/block are straight and having a good look at the other plugs. Other concerns?

(Oh, Nick, it was the one between alternator and coil so pretty handy. Did I see you at Badgers Halt control last time? Wishing I was heading there now!)

Our RBRR has ended with a sudden loss of coolant after driving through a lake-like puddle near Edinburgh.

Super frustrating. Recovery is taking hours and it seems that, having pulled over fairly quickly, the car could be running again with a new plug and a coolant refill.

Any experience with this and thoughts on possible extent of damage?

Good to hear it's working now. You mentioned you're finishing off the wiring so do shout if there are any further issues. I put a new loom in mine several years ago and for the most part used a diagram in an Autopress manual by Philip Smith. I had trouble finding correct or colour diagrams on the internet.

Thanks for your comments on the Vitesse, I really like the 1600. Hopefully see your GT6 in action soon, or at least some photos 😃

Hey Tel

I used this when I rewired my 67 MK1

Hazen, it's amazing to see your car looking fantastic and out at a show at last after more than 20 years of care and attention to restore it, and so many problems overcome along the way. Congrats on a brilliant job!

Thanks as ever glang. I'm with you on those options, and the replacement part does indeed have a plasticky feel. Need to get things going asap so I'll boil the kettle and have another go, and then superglue the split. Will have to make do for now.
Oh, this is for the GT6, not the Vitesse - that thankfully is running well

Hi

Trying to fit service kit for Girling MC on a Vitesse 1600. Does the pushrod come apart to make fitting the new dust cover simple? It doesn't look like it does (as the view from the clevis pin end shows a very smooth join), but despite warming and lubing I split the new dust cover trying to stretch it over the end. I'm about to try again with another new cover. If not, how best to stretch this over?

On 25/04/2022 at 17:33, Ben Hutchings said:

....long delay sorry 😬 @Baxter. Well I've not put the fuel lines/pump/filters back into the car yet since my investigations, but I think I found the issue: Malpassi Filter King had fired it's needle valve thing out, inside the glass bowl, so I think it was completely flooding the carbs after about 20 mins. Something like that. 

Good luck Ben, I hope that is the issue and the fix is easy.  Hoping to see your GT6 out and about as we're located quite close to each other

On 29/03/2022 at 12:42, Guppy916 said:

Very neat Baxter, are you still running with no misfire now ?

Yes, no misfire. Crazy - it went from cutting out every 30 mins to doing the RBRR without a fault. (Sorry only just saw replies to this old thread)
 

Nick is surely right.

Michael, did you mean to type £10,000 instead?

Congrats Hazen! How exciting must that have been after so many years on the restoration. How did it drive, and what did your wife think?
BTW I have windscreen envy - I didn't know such a thing existed, but even after a thorough clean I could hardly see through mine with the low evening sun at the weekend

Tim kindly started this thread for me, so I should report back. I opted for MGF seats on the basis of the classic look of the MK1 seats and the reasonable cost/availability. Plus fitting was simple per the easy to find guide (from Adam in NZ for tssc?).
We're really pleased with the results. Can't recline past the B pillar, but sliding forward to allow enough recline still left our legs comfortable. We each had one good solid 2hr sleep per night on RBRR, and it was probably adrenalin and minor car/route/event issues that prevented more.

Re height: I've used the mgf runners. The seats do sit a little higher but not much, and we didn't notice it while driving. We did notice that being wider we're slight further over toward the door, making the steering wheel sit to our left. Soon forgotten.
Photo below gives an idea of height difference. On the side-by-side photo, the vitesse seat is without runners, the mgf on its runners but with the 4 corner fitting brackets cut and ground off.

 

More seats!

Having just retrimmed my GT6 seats I've taken the quicker and cheaper route on the Vitesse and fitted MGF seats. Allegedly more comfortable too, and I can't wait for my first test drive tonight

Great to hear - thanks yorkshire, Ben and glang for your quick help with this.

I do have the separate header tank, but there's little in there at the moment. And I don't mind a fair bit of spillage as my evening suddenly looks better and doesn't involve shopping for more antifreeze and water 🙂

My thermostat (in a Vitesse 6) appears to have packed up. WSM indicates draining the coolant before opening the housing to replace. As I only just flushed my system and refilled, can I get away with a quick opening of the housing, thermostat swap, new gasket and a bit of spillage; or would this introduce unshiftable air bubbles or other issues?

That sounds a bit cheap now I've written it, but it seemed sensible to avoid unnecessary effort and coolant usage!

Exciting progress Hazen. Great to see!

Thanks - good reasons to switch to a larger reservoir. I'll do that over winter.

I've been running silicone brake fluid since I got the car. A mechanic recently told me it's as bad for paint as DOT3/4, but I was surprised by that and all the product blurb seems to say otherwise.

Rob, I've had the car 3 years. It's been slowly revealing a few secrets, as seems to be the norm, so your suspicion could well be correct. 

I think I'll replace the clutch MC now with a standard size reservoir one, and leave the brakes alone - as they're working and there seems to be an alarming list of things that aren't at present. Then I can sort everything out properly over winter and try to do some better rust removal and painting.

1 hour ago, Slimboyfat said:

Both clutch, and  brake cylinders the same on Vitesse at 5/8".

 

The clutch master on your car is a repro 5/8" with larger plastic reservoir. It's still available (as are the standard alloy reservoir types). We use part number GMC220Z, others might list it under different number for more money!

Thanks. Looks out of stock (though available to order) so I'll have to have a look around quickly as I'd like to get something posted today. No need for the larger reservoir it seems.

What are the correct MCs for a Vitesse 6? It always struck me as odd that my car arrived with a large cylinder for the clutch and small for the brakes. See pic.

Paint was starting to ripple, so I popped the bubbles and found lots of surface rust below. Have I been sloppy in topping up the DOT5.1 (and is that actually a paint stripper like DOT3 - I'd heard it was safer for spills)?  Maybe it was an imperceptible leak, as the clutch MC emptied itself over the last week, filling the rubber boot and oozing out onto the scuttle.

What is the correct replacement part?
There's some sludge at the bottom of the cylinder - do I need to service the slave cylinder?
Do I need to replace the small brake MC while I'm at it?
 

On 16/08/2021 at 07:24, RobPearce said:

I'm not certain but the Vitesse wheel I have in my Mk3 Spitfire is peeling badly at one point and the loose flap certainly feels like leather.

Thanks @RobPearce No tell-tale loose flaps on mine. I had to abandon the job to focus on getting my Vitesse ready for RBRR, so will report back much later on this one

What a great job Ben! I was recently trying to do similar and ended up with a far inferior outcome. Will be keen to have a closer look at yours

On 18/06/2021 at 12:00, Ben Hutchings said:

Hey @Baxter I just imported this thread from the old forum and so pleased I did! My GT6 is suffering from pretty much exactly the same problem. I've been though quite a few of the troubleshooting steps above, but not replaced any fuel-lines yet. Did the problem stay fixed since your last post? And if so, did you pin it down to a specific thing, or was it just some restriction somewhere in the lines? 

Thanks, and thanks for everyone's advice on this thread. It's gold. 

@Ben Hutchings How are you getting on with your misfire/cut out? I've now put a few miles on the car and can report back on my findings. Drove Ciren to Devon - one brief misfire session by Bristol. Poured water over fuel pipes and completed the 150 miles without incident. Return 150 miles without fault. That was a hot weekend too. Then put another 500 miles on over 2 weeks in daily driver mode, never more than an hour or so/ 35 miles in one go, but no problems. I can't pin down the improvement but here's what I think. I've made 4 changes:
1. Put Huco pump in place of Facet. Only managed a couple of long runs before serious cut out problems occurred. Facet pump was stronger (and much noisier) so potentially this was the start of my problems.

2. Changed the coil multiple times. Can rule this one out now. Vapour lock has surely been the issue - and pouring cold water on fuel hoses quickly improves/clears it.

3. Changed the fuel lines from tank to bay/pump, then pump to carbs. This increased flow by 50%

4. Modified fuel pipe routing to try to avoid high spots. Not completely possible on my triple SU set up with the banjo inlets provided.

So I think 3 and 4 have both helped all but eliminate the problem.

4 has also caused an increase in the rubber slivers. What with that and the ethanol in our fuel I recently had an idea to look up how things work on that other car famous for sporting triple SUs - the e-type. It seems far more elegant solder banjos and t-junctions are used, so I decided to have one made up (there's an expert in the workshop next door to mine). This completely eliminates the high hose loop and will greatly reduce the slivers. Just fitted it tonight. Will let you know how I get on once I'm back on the road.

 

On 18/09/2020 at 21:44, Pete Lewis said:

never dispel the ideas of the dreaded rubber slivers nasty little sods get cut off the hose bore when inserting metal pipes , they randomly float about and block the back of the float needle valves can drive you mad 

need to remove the valve and check behing where they hide and also pump a little fuel into a jar see if you catch some 

also check the hose to the top fuel tank outlet , good place to suck air but not show a leak due to no head of fuel present when parked up.

Pete

Pete, you are so right about those slivers! I took my recently cleaned fuel bowls apart and found loads of them. Never seen them before.