Crank, no start....

[mickthemaverick]

I think you're right, he definitely enjoyed it!! So which features has yours got that that one hasn't bobins?

[bobins]

From just looking at the video, Helga has one more button on the centre console in front of the gear selector - I think a button for turning off the alarm if it's being towed, and also she's got memory seats whereas the hubnut one hasn't - and that's it as far as I can see. They've both got the mushroom interior, extra set of seats, wooden steering wheel. I didn't see if the hardtop in the video was a panoramic roof though.

I was at a local car show with Helga today - a fair few people came up and spoke and either had owned one, or would love to own one I would have loved to have owned the Lancia Fulvia Zagato there. Or the huge Cadillac. Or the 1960 Thunderbird. Or.... or... or....

[bobins]

Helga and the MX5 out together enjoying the sights and the sun recently

Helga and the hairdryer - Mrs Bobins' own work

[PaulC5]

Where is this, I thought the UK sold all its Harriers to the USA ?

[bobins]

Whoa !! I hadn't noticed the 'planes in the photo

It's at Tangmere Military Aviation Museum (West Sussex, Chichester)
https://tangmere-museum.org.uk/

It's a lovely museum with some rather nice aircraft in there - Neville Duke's airspeed record red Hunter, a Lightning.... rumour has it that if you speak nicely to the staff they let you up the steps 'round the back to peer into the cockpit. Allegedly Plenty of other bits and bobs. It was the departure point for many SOE operatives - a one way trip for far too many of them
I think they have a 'cockpit day' where you can sit in the cockpits of the various aircraft - with the exception of Duke's Hunter. I think you might need to sharpen your elbows for that day though as you'd need to get the children out of the way so you can get a good seat

[CitroJim]

Helga and the MX5 out together enjoying the sights and the sun recently

That's one heck of a hairdryer

[bobins]

I took Mrs Bobins and Helga back to the continent recently - Belgium and Germany - for a week long trip. The weather was OK for the most part, but the roads were lovely
One slight issue reared its head towards the end of the holiday - one of the convertible roof hydraulic locking cylinders at the front started to leak a bit. It's a common enough problem and it's easy enough to fix, and thankfully I spotted it when it happened so no damage was caused to the interior The solution for the few remaining days of the holiday - just don't use the roof !

Fixing them is suprisingly easy !
Just remove 6 screws on the rail at the top of the windscreen......

Trim rail in place at top of windscreen - own work

Slide the rail backwards to reveal the hydraulic cylinders......

1 of 2 locking cylinders - own work

Unscrew the mechanisms and unclip the pipes and undo the wires and put in place something to mop up and drips from the pipework and you end up with 2 free locking cylinders......

2 cylinders on the bench - own work

Strip the cylinders - actually a very easy job - and replace one 'U' cup seal and one 'O' ring seal on each. The 'U' cup seal and 'O' ring seals go in and on the right hand most metal cup in the picture....

Stripped cylinder - own work

The whole job can be done in under half an hour if you've done it before, and the seals cost around £20 delivered for the set. Not too bad

The other seals in the picture are for all the other hydraulic cylinders in the system. None of them are leaking at the moment, but I thought it wise to have them in stock.

[bobins]

As winter draws on, it's time to settle Helga in to her winter quarters. I normally put the hardtop on for winter to keep the interior more secure and help to keep it drier. As I manhandled the hardtop into place on Monday I noticed a bit of the roof trim was loose and needed gluing back into place. As I peered at it to see what I'd need to do to fix it, one of the plastic trim clips that holds the trim in place came unstuck.... followed by another one. No probs - I can remove that trim and glue the clips back onto the reverse of the trim. In trying to remove the trim, I had to remove some other trim.... and the clips on the reverse of that came unstuck. And again on another bit of trim. Of the six bits of clip-in trim that go to make up the bulk of the hardtop interior, 4 of them needed various clips re-gluing in place

The actual job of removing the bits of trim was refreshingly easy, and gluing the clips back in place was a relative doddle - easily clean off the old glue with a penknife, clean up the faces with a bit of IPA, mix up some 5 minute Araldite, and Bob's yer uncle. It all went back together without any drama or swearing

Other jobs to do over winter - replace the 'goalpost' gasket that sits on the front of the engine. These are known to leak due to age. Not too bad a job, but it can be a PITA to seat the rubber gasket as it can deform when the engine front cover is slid back over it. I also want to change the front brake pads to see if the Brembo ones fair any better than the Pagid(?) ones that it came fitted with

All but one bit of trim removed - own work

Side trim removed - own work

Various clips glued back in place - own work

Hardtop in place - own work

[CitroJim]

Excellent We need to see some pictures of this 'goalpost' gasket

[bobins]

Don't worry, Jim, It'll be documented when I summon up the enthusiasm to get in there I need to do it all fairly soon as the car normally goes up on jack stands over winter, but before I do that I need to do the gasket and then run the car up and change the oil and filter. Hopefully I'll get there before a week before the end of next month.

[bobins]

Over the last couple of weeks I've managed to grab some time over my lunch breaks to work on the timing cover 'goalpost' gasket on the engine. As I've come to expect - it all went surprisingly well

The gasket sits at the bottom of the front timing cover and is known to go hard and leak over time.

Timing cover within the red circle - own work

First off was to drain to coolant as the main coolant pipe passes through the middle of the timing cover which has to come off. A bit of hose attached to the drain off point at the bottom of the radiator, open the drain cock, and drain it out into a suitable container, and that bit of the job completed without the need for any tools

Then it was off with the rocker cover....

Rocker cover off - own work

Then disconnect the wiring for the cam advance thingy, undo the bolts for the timing cover, and withdraw a locating dowel that also acts as a mount for a timing chain guide. This required the use fo a special small slide hammer tool which appeared to be quite pricey. I'd considered bodging something by using a very large socket as a dead-weight, or cobbling together some chunks of metal to do the job, but I stumbled across an ebay listing for a complete slide hammer kit made out of finest Chineseum designed specifically for the job for £20 all in. That'll do then ! The dead-weight hammer part of it seemed unfeasibly heavy..... perhaps they make it out of depleted Uranium

Cam advance thingy and slide hammer - own work

Slide hammer in use - own work

Once you prise off the timing cover you get to the gasket seal in need of attention...

Goalpost seal in situ - own work

This is what a new one looks like

Guess why it's sometimes known as a goalpost seal - Elring parts catalogue

Clean up the mating faces, grease up the seal, slide the timing cover back over everything along with some RTV sealant on the dry mating faces, then check with a mirror to see if the seal has been dislodged. If it's all gone to plan then it's just a case of bolting it all back together along with a new rocker cover and spark plug holes gasket set, and then refill the cooling system. I used a vacuum filler to get the coolant back in and it's the first time I've used one. It made it a mostly very easy and mess free job, but as the cooling system is fairly large on this car, I ran out of vacuum with a litre or so still to go If I'd have used more vacuum then it'd have put the vacuum gauge into the red It was easy enough to top it off, but it would have been nice to fill the whole system under vacuum.

After all that, I ran her up to temperature and changed the oil and filter with 6.5 litres of nice and cheap Total 7000 10w/40.
Job done and she can now go up on axle stands until some time in March hopefully

[CitroJim]

Excellent work Good to see a proper robust cam chain in there.

Yep, that gasket is well named!

[bobins]

A little diversion for Good Friday. Mrs Bobins awoke the MX5 (The Hairdryer) from its winter slumbers and took it out for a spin. At some point the EML came on - that's the first time that's happened in our ownership. Thankfully it's all relatively simple on this so I hooked it up to my diagnostics kit and it interrogated the two available modules (!) to see what the problem was. Turns out it was the EGR valve reporting a dodgy internal coil. Getting to it and removing it is wonderfully easy.....

EGR valve is the black round thing just below/behind the exposed trottle cable - own work

.....and a quick test of the resistance of the coils showed no issues, so I took the EGR valve motor housing off and cleaned out the exhaust gas pathways with brake cleaner and degreaser and put it back together.

EGR valve on the bench being cleaned - own work

Easy enough to put back on the car.......

Two holes are where the EGR goes just below the intake - own work

I timed how long it took to put it all back on the car and get the car to a startable condition..... 4 minutes 45 seconds. Why can't all cars be this easy ?
It'll need a good few drives before I'm confident it's fixed as various things can actually cause the fault, but a good drive today showed no more problems

[bobins]

Something different this way comes.....

After much procrastinating and deliberation, and downright putting it off, I finally took the plunge and invited myself up to a good mate's workshop to have a look at and attempt to assist him in giving my old Series 3 Land Rover a good coat of 'looking at'
Many years ago, I persuaded him to take my Land Rover back to his Suffolk premises so he could do an engine swap on it. The old 2.25 diesel in it was fairly tired and in need of a large overhaul, and at about the same time another friend had just removed a 2.5 diesel from his civvy/military Land Rover and this engine was in need of a new home. So I bought it thinking it would be a simple job - it was a low mileage very good condition engine..... ideal ! That was probably over 10 years ago now At some point after buying the engine, I lost the garage that the Land Rover was stored in, so it was uplifted to Suffolk. And there she sat - gathering dust

Dusty old Land Rover - own work

Lots of dust......

Land Rover dust magnet - own work

Dust being carefully stored - own work

So the purpose of this visit was to try and get her running under her own steam to allow her to be moved around and out of the way. The 'new' 2.5 diesel was already in the engine bay, but nothing had been connected up - so that was task number one. Some of the fuel lines had to be shortened or lengthened to be able to reach the bulkhead mounted fuel filter as the pipeline layout is slightly different between the original 2.25L and the 'new' 2.5L engines. This wasn't too difficult - especially when your mate has a box load of pipe fittings that'll make it a doddle Next up was the throttle linkage. My Land Rover has both a throttle pedal and a bulkhead mounted hand throttle in the cab. These are rod connected, with a short piece of Bowden cable going to the injection pump. We were expecting a bit of a ball-ache with this as the two engines have different pump layouts, but in the end the Bowden cable simply clipped into position. Too easy. Far far too easy

Injection pump on the 2.5L - own work

The 2.5L diesel has a horizontally mounted injection pump, the old 2.25 has a near vertical one.

Next up was putting in the rest of the bellhousing bolts that mate the engine to the gearbox - actually thankfully straightforward. After that it was plumbing in the clutch with a new master cylinder, slave cylinder, and flexi hose. The master cylinder is a PITA due to no room to get your fingers or spanners in there. He was in the footwell whilst I was leaning over the side in the engine bay. Eventually we got the new one in after managing to turn the nut and bolt about 1/79th of a turn each time. The flexi hose and slave cylinder were a doddle by comparison.

After making such good progress, and with a gaping hole in the front of the body where the radiator should be making access easy, we decided to do a quick cambelt change. The timing cover and water pump came off with relative ease and so we slackened off the belt and..... oh dear. Immediate drips of diesel from behind the injection pump timing pulley....

Puddle of diesel below the pulley - own work

Well that's less than ideal Age, and not being turned, had caused the pressure seal on the pump shaft to fail. After a quick phone call to a grown up, it was determined that the pump has to come out for overhaul..... and that's where I'm at now.

DPS pump on the bench - own work

Getting it overhauled by a specialist to replace the seals costs around £450-ish. Getting a Delphi seal kit to do it at home costs under £40. Hmmmmmm. Do I take a brave pill and do it myself ? I'm sure the process is documented on the web somewhere. I mean... it can't be that difficult, can it ?

[moizeau]

My S111 has a Leyland DAF 2 1'2 from a post office van. I had to cut the battery tray off and relocate it under the passenger seat. I changed the inlet manifold and use the DAF air filter that sits on top. Also I thinks I used a 2 1/4 exhaust manifold to couple up the exhaust. This was all 25 years ago so.....The other thing was to add an ignition live to a push button via a relay for the starter because the ignition live that feeds the fuel solenoid cuts off when the key is moved to the starter position.