RobPearce

1) Tappet clearance should be 0.010" (0.25mm) - the WSM hides it in the text rather than the dimensions and clearance page 2) I think those hoses look right 3) There is one choke cable that connects to the metering unit, to operate the cold enrichment, and the throttle cable to the lever arrangement on the inlet manifold. It's a while since I had my PI but the WSM seems to hint at a second choke cable to operate a cold idle lever which looks similar to the throttle one.

The windows are insufficient. I have done the RBRR five times in my GT6 and once (last year) in my Mk3 Spitfire. The Spitfire was much more fun and more pleasant.

Toby's been in the dog house over deciding not to play nice, but now that Tessa and the GT6 are both usable I decided to see if I can figure out what's up. He's developed a new fault - the electric fan controller is going into fault mitigation mode (suggesting it can't see the temperature sensor). But for now, I've done a compression test (all about equal between 125 and 140) and changed the plugs and oil.

When I needed one for my Toledo, the Dolomite club's proper, correct shape stainless system cost less than the Rimmer's 1500TC "almost fits so you can modify it" in mild steel, even after adding a year's club membership.

You can check the end-float without getting "in there". All you need is a glamorous assistant to press the clutch, while you watch the front pulley. With the engine running it normally settles back to a neutral position, so pressing the clutch will move the pulley by about half the end-float. If you can see it move then it's a bit too much, but if you're not quite sure then it's probably OK.

That sort of pitting is perfectly normal and won't go away with lapping, in my experience. It doesn't seem to cause any problems.

Looking at period press photos, the very early 948 and the later 'S' (a 948 "low cost" model introduced alongside the 1200) had body colour bumpers, but most 948s and all 1200, 12/50 and 13/60 had rubber ones, except the AMI 12/50 coupe, which had Vitesse-style or possibly chrome.

I had an engine mount fail on my Spitfire after zero miles! (Well, 100 miles on a trailer but the engine hadn't even been started). The other side failed within a few hundred and the gearbox mount failed in about a thousand. Fortunately the replacements all managed to survive RBRR and C2C.

I wouldn't worry about tappet noise. If you had bottom end noise or no oil pressure then a rebuild is in order, but if it's running well and has good compression, and the only problem is tappet noise, then don't panic. But as Pete says, you should find an experienced ear for a second opinion.

I think you're in danger of throwing money at the wrong problem in your frustration. STOP. Take a step back and re-think it. That's not surprising. The soot is because you've been running rich, probably from all the cold starts and no long journeys. However, the inner cylinders inherently run hotter than the outers, so they tend to burn the soot off better. Also: It possibly does, a bit. The reason for the design is to avoid it being a "log", though, so that the mixture is more even. In reality, it wasn't entirely successful, hence the re-design for better emissions performance on the Toledo. The power loss is apparently not real. The figure quoted for the Toledo was measured using a different standard (ancillaries on rather than off) so the real-world power of the Toledo engine is possibly a fraction more than a 13/60. Have you been using fuel additive? Lapping the valves removes the "lead memory" that protected them from unleaded petrol. It won't have caused any real problems in the minimal use it's seen since but it's worth using some Castrol Valvemaster once you're doing any decent mileage. Newly rebuilt engines are no less susceptible to setup problems than old, well run-in ones. My Vitesse took me two years to debug after I rebuilt the engine. What spark plugs do you use? The same conditions that cause the sootiness will often kill modern plugs, especially NGKs.

That seems rather unlikely. The bell housing is a LOT more rigid than the rubber mounts, so all the strain would be on the gearbox mount. It's possible that the position of the engine-end-gearbox-assembly had changed in such a way that the gearstick was interfering with the bodywork, thus making it hard to put it where it needed to be.

only where there's a neutron flow

Sorry, no. re-read Danny's words that you quoted and you'll find it's actually the exact opposite of the problem you say Robson had.

I only mention it because the standard argument for why you shouldn't use DOT5 uses the exact same "science" as for why E10 is bad but relies on a polar opposite interpretation.

If there's wear on the rockers, it can often be impossible to set the tappet clearances correctly with a feeler gauge. If you dare, there's a trick whereby you run the engine with the rocker cover off and gently press a wooden dowel on each of the tappet adjusters in turn. If the noise reduces when you press one then that one needs pinching up a little.

That has always been a problem on Dolomites, even before unleaded, never mind ethanol. If you get water in the tank, with non-ethanol petrol, it absolutely WILL sit on the bottom and rust it out. With ethanol, it can absorb some of it and you may get away with it as long as the car is in regular use. Where do you stand on silicon brake fluid?

That's an oversimplification and can give misleading results if applied naively. The voltage at the coil +ve will be battery voltage regardless of coil type when the points are open. On a ballasted coil it drops to 6V with points closed, but not instantly. Although it's faster than you could measure with a meter, it will affect the reading you get with the engine running, which has so much noise on it that a multimeter probably isn't useful.

They were if you are discussing original factory equipment, but all three of mine have 3-rail with J-type as they were a popular conversion in the '90s.

Much as you may dislike his tone, he actually can so prove his statements, as they are statements of accepted scientific fact, unlike the "it would appear" rumours that you're giving in support of your claims. So perhaps the both of you should tone down a little and stop dredging up old posts purely for the sake of taking offence.

Even with a J-type on a 3-rail box, it's still the non-OD Vitesse prop you want, it just compresses the sliding joint near its limit. The OD version wouldn't reach. The OD one may be correct for a single rail, I'm not sure on the length of that.

You will need to change the propshaft for any change to overdrive as the OD unit adds about two inches to the length of the gearbox. The J-type vs. D-type difference is much less - perhaps half an inch. However, a J-type will almost certainly have the large flange that takes 3/8" bolts, whereas a D-type may have the smaller 5/16" bolt type like your existing propshaft.

If you have the stubby plug bolt in there, it's also possible to oil trunnions without a grease nipple. You don't need huge pressure so a squirty oil can with a plastic tip, pressed into the thread where the bolt came out, will normally suffice. However, 1/4"UNF is one of the standard threads for grease nipples so it's not hard to find them.

Quite easy to test for that one, though. If the misfire is repeatable, you can bypass the tacho and it will go away if the tacho is at fault.

You said it "seemed to affect the rev counter" - do you mean the needle flickered with the misfire? If so, it suggests that it's a low-tension ignition problem, so either the dizzy or the Lumenition box. The coil is unlikely to cause this (although it's possible on very early cars with the current-sensing rev counter that's wired in series with the coil, rather than in parallel).

A fair amount of what I did was avoiding that problem. The trick is to be able to identify conditions where the manifold pressure is a predictable smidgen below atmospheric - such as wide open throttle at moderate revs - and estimate BAP from that, then use a slowish filter to learn it. After all, you don't gain altitude all that fast so you only need to adjust the learned BAP at the sort of pace it could really be changing at. And when you're driving up a mountain, you spend quite a lot of time at wide open throttle! What surprised us on the Tucson test was how much time you spend at WOT when going down a mountain...