RobPearce

I think, if the only reason for believing there's "no flow" is that the bulk of the radiator stays cold, then it's probably flowing absolutely fine. At idle, there's not that much heat going into the rad, and if the rad's in good condition then it can easily dispose of that heat within the top quarter, especially if it's still got a mechanical fan running. I had a 2500S with an electric fan that seized up. I didn't even notice until I'd been stuck in stationary traffic for twenty minutes after a good blast.

Pete Lewis would take issue with that statement. Most of the after-market ones don't have the bleed hole but the proper one should.

No, just an extra gear. Expect the same as changing up - i.e. revs drop and less acceleration available. I generally don't use the clutch when switching the overdrive but none of mine currently suffer any harshness. The one car I had which was harsh (a quite unpleasant judder, in fact) was a Dolomite with a failed UJ on the propshaft. Play in the drive line can make the transition harsh.

When you say it seems to lose power, how significantly? Is it just a case of "it accelerates slightly less", like you'd expect from changing up a gear, or is it a complete loss of power? If the latter, you may have an electrical problem to investigate.

The crank and bearings are common to the early 2L Mk1 but only up to HC4500 (early 2000 saloon had a longer production run of that spec). The pistons are unique. Herald 1200 pistons are a significant overbore and I've seen references to potential problems with the water jacket between bores.

Finally got round to putting some paint (colour coat) on Tessa's headlight surrounds. Then today I took Toby's gearbox cover out to check the oil level (which I suspect is empty)

I've always found the factory pressures too low for modern tyres. I generally run 30psi all round.

Where did you find them "very expensive"? As Clive says, they're standard HT bolts taken from the factory's standard bolts part bin. M8 would probably work but are not as good a thread so the torque setting would be wrong. Stick with the UNF but get them from a nut and bolt shop, not a rip-off "classic car parts specialist".

Many people put MX5 seats in (I think the Mk1 version). What's the problem with your seats? The originals are often criticised for being uncomfortable but that's nearly always because they're knackered. I refurbished the ones on my GT6, having previously had a set of MkIV Spitfire ones professionally rebuilt for my Spitfire, using the kit from Park Lane. It's not actually that difficult - just takes patience and the ability to follow instructions. We did the RBRR in the Spitfire and neither of us felt any discomfort at the end of it.

Having found a dead mouse half way out of one of the sill drain holes on my Spitfire, I don't consider any part of a Triumph to be rodent-proof.

There are several lengths of clutch release bearing / carrier for that arrangement. The 1600 Vitesse clutch was, I believe, a coil spring type, so its release bearing will be very different from the later diaphragm spring type, which is again different to the saloon one. Also, the saloon flywheel is thicker than the Vitesse one and some saloon engines had a longer crank tail.

The garage sound like a waste of space. I do hope YS can help the guy get it sorted.

I don't think there's any safety benefit to a new hole vs. an existing one, and sharing with the choke cable should be fine as long as you wrap the new sub-harness in proper electrical tape, and use a proper grommet. The real danger lies in having (unfused) wires passing through a hole without protection - the edge of the hole WILL cut through the insulation. That's what the grommet is for, and why you should fit a new one. Attaching the harness to the choke cable with a cable tie would, if anything, give it a bit of extra protection. The reason for not doing so - for using a separate hole with a second grommet - is that the hole in the middle of the grommet will seal much better on a single round-ish thing than it would on two together, so you may find marginal benefits for NVH and keeping engine bay smells out.

M14 There's really only those two threads used for spark plugs, with the smaller being a motorbike or small 16V fitment. A few others have been used but not on anything as mundane as a Triumph.

Further to what Karl said, the car in my avatar was bought (by my brother) as a "nicely restored" example with very shiny bodywork but some mechanical niggles. He figured that oily bits are easier. Unfortunately, the "restoration" (and I use the term very loosely) consisted mostly of half an inch of filler in all the usual places, and a respray. After a year of use, the MOT failure list was too long for a quick fix and it took us (well, me, since he passed the car on to me as payment for fixing his GT6) three decades to get it into the condition you now see. Take a magnet with you and check that everything is really as good as it looks.

Actually you need fig C, which they don't include. It's like B in that the red wire goes to the ignition switch, but the grey wire to the ballast does not, so you need to find a white wire somewhere else.

If it's a 1.5ohm coil then it should have the ballast resistor. The white/grey goes to one end of that and the dual white/yellow to the other. One of those white/yellow wires goes to the coil +ve, the other disappears into the harness (and goes to the additional terminal on the starter solenoid). That's all as per the original wiring and should remain so. The problem is that the Pertronix instructions are written for a 3ohm, non-ballast coil with a parallel-connected tacho, and they blithely assume that the coil +ve is a convenient local "pure white" (i.e. direct to the ignition switch) connection. It is not, on your car. Therefore the Pertronix instructions are wrong and you need to move that red wire off the coil, to a proper white wire. There aren't many of those to hand, unfortunately. The inertia switch and the fuse box are the best candidates.

OK, that's not going to be helping. The white/yellow (actually shown as white/orange in the book) wire goes to the ballast resistor and the starter solenoid. If you've disconnected the resistor then it's not live. The white/grey wire should be connected to the coil +ve if it's a 3ohm coil, or you should re-connect the ballast resistor if it's a 1.5ohm coil. Either way, you cannot connect the EI unit supply to the coil. Your car has a series-driven tacho, which is why the white/grey is not a plain white. The EI supply must connect to a true white (direct off the ignition switch) wire.

If your alternator has three spades - two large, one medium - in a row, then the connector you want is almost certainly this one (also available on eBay or elsewhere)

Is the connector in picture 1 a three-way with the brown/yellow wire connecting two of them? If so, you have an early car with the loom for a 15ACR which has been hacked around converted to suit a later 17ACR type alternator. To complete that job properly, to Matt's satisfaction, you should move the brown wire from that connector to the third terminal of the alternator (and ideally replace the three individual Lucar connectors with the later type alternator connector). Mind you, it's only a "normal size" wire so doing that doesn't give the full benefit Matt would like. The green wire going to the temperature sender is correct if - and only if - it's actually green with a blue tracer. However, emerging from the loom there and having a black sleeve makes it a good candidate. What actual colour is the wire to the coil +ve? It looks yellow in that photo; you want a plain white one. Have you checked the voltage on it?

The post-facelift wiring diagram shows two wires in parallel, nice and simple. The pre-facelift ones mostly had two wires but one went only to the solenoid and the other to a distribution block. Except for very early Mk2 PIs which carried over the Mk1's 15ACR alternator, with only one big fat brown wire but five connections in total. Those would not have had the familiar plastic plug. Looking at the photo again, I'm slightly wondering whether this is actually one of those very early cars. There seem to be too many wires in that area. I want to get my paws in there and identify every single one of them so I know what's going on.

That could be misread - as has been discussed on another thread these last couple of days, Pertronix works just fine with a ballasted coil but the unit itself needs 12V, so if you have a ballast system, don't connect the Pertronix supply to the coil, take it to the proper (white) ign-sw-live circuit.

As Beans and Clive both said, an EI will drive a ballasted coil fine, it's only the EI's own (low current) supply that needs to be direct from the ignition live circuit. I've done so with several makes over the years.

That depends on the condition of the wire - it may be fine if it's good, but it looks a bit tired so doubling it up would certainly do no harm. But that's a job for later, we need to get this baby running first! The alternator is irrelevant for now apart from the question of why the charge warning light no longer comes on. That could be because the thin wire has fallen off the alternator, or the brushes are dead, or similar. Check whether there's 12V on that thin wire, unplugged from the alternator, with the ignition switch on. If there is, the alternator end is the problem with that light and we can discount it from our diagnosis of the non-starting. If not, either the bulb's blown or it's not getting power, and that may help narrow down the fault. Check the voltage on the coil, as Matt said, and on the various terminals of the ignition switch (they're just about accessible with the cowl removed). The odd thing is that the fuel pump powers up. If the coil isn't getting power, the fault must be after the ignition switch, somewhere in the loom.