Rusted old wrecks

willsmorke said:
. A good 20 thou feeler did the trick although you could get pretty close by eye.
Click to expand...

I think the only reason we did the tappets by eye was because of the excessive wear groove on the rocker arm? The feeler could not fit in,
so you ended up with all the wear + the thickness of the gauge.

I remember doing tappets on a Fiesta (1.1 OHV) with the owner looking on, no fancy reception area. And they were noisier when I was finished than at the start :oops:

And the Citroen's with the timing marks on the belt, lovely. I think they are about the only car company that has become more main stream as the years went on. They even have McPherson struts in the C3.

Don't forget the mini 850 / Morris 1100 with their never ending overheating problems. A mate of ours had no horn due to a technical issue in the steering column. So instead of using the horn he would slip the clutch as he passed. Not the easiest thing in the world to replace.

Fitting negative earth radios to positive earth Minis? As we could not get the sound systems in positive earth (well not in the markets) so we mounted the unit on timber (insulated the return) to allow the negative earth units to work.
Bought a MK3 Cortina with the battery in the wrong way round. Everything worked fine until we fitted the new 8 track stereo. :oops:
And went back and got another one as we thought the first one was faulty.

This is better than any psychologist, and cheaper.
 
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The Ford Anglia with the vacuum operated wipers....the faster you went (admittedly not very so) the slower they worked - real slick :eek:

No rear crank seal on the Marina - slight overfilling the engine meant a bellhousing full of oil, spun by the flywheel :D

John :)
 
How about the lovely talbot/chrysler (simca) tappets, guaranteed back ache,french carbs always had blocked idle jets..Then along came the mk 3 escort with its new fangled electronic ignition & vv carb..cutting out, or no acceleration or just wouldnt start from cold, modules,diaphragms,choke housings,manual choke conversions etc the only fix that really worked was a weber conversion and the smaller type lucas distributor
 
Indeed I had personal experiences with both the carbs and the dizzy.
The paint was crap too, and on the early 1300 cvh's the timing belt could let go at 12000 miles :eek:
The customer is still the guinea pig!
John :)
 
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Sarah just reminded me of the Polski Fiat and the Lada 124, happy days

Real quality motors if you left it ticking over for to long, the diodes in the alternator would overheat and go open circuit. A real joy to do, Soviet/ Marelli alternator!

A friend of mine had one, he would leave the doors unlocked, hoping for the best. But instead of stealing it, they broke into the boot?


http://www.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=...a=X&ei=HVM7TZK6HIebhQf526SLCg&ved=0CB8Q9QEwAg
 
I can remember when I was a student and shared a house with three others. All of us drove old "sheds" and instead of the smell of bacon from under the grill each morning, there would be the smell of hot HT leads and WD40 as each of us put our distributor caps and HT leads under the grill for a bit in (often vain!) attempts to get the old heaps to start!

In those days, one of the main reasons for wanting girfreinds was as a source of nail varnish to paint on cracked coils!
 
[quote="Avocet";p="1876907"

In those days, one of the main reasons for wanting girfreinds was as a source of nail varnish to paint on cracked coils![/quote]

Now you could touch up the paint work with nail varnish there are so many different shades! In our day it was post box red (stay away) or natural (maybe)?
 
The pink Marigold strategically tied over your mini distributor.....
there was an aerosol spray that coated stuff in plastic - if I could remember its name. And then, WD40 came along and no ones sun visor would stay up! :p
Electrical parts by Joe Lucas - Prince of Darkness :D
John :)
 
I don't recall that (which means absolutely nothing).....this aerosol left a clear plastic coating on what it was sprayed onto, but once dry it could be scraped off. Like most of these mechanics in a can, it was probably useless.
John :)
 
Thats the one! :D Another useless product that everyone had to have.
I remember the claims made by the original Waxoyl......kills aphids! Well handy :D
John :)
 
The most idiotic idea ever, the Peugeot (309?) that had the mega long fanbelt that went from the side of the transverse mounted engine via several pullys to the front to drive the rad fan round a 90 degree corner!
 
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