Beeper

The carb should be earthed via the mounting studs and nuts. My VW didn't have a seperate earth on it, just a live feed from the coil as I said. Oh and make sure that the + feed spade connecter has a rubber sleeve on it. Mine didn't at first and when the tall manifold rocked back and forth a bit, the gap between the spade connector and the fan house was so small it would constantly blow fuses. Not so much a problem on an inline 4, but I'd insulate it just to be sure.

You could try the old VW way. I had a 32/36 Weber on my old T2 campervan, it was, (obviously being air cooled) fitted with an electric choke, (fed from the + terminal on the coil) whereas Ford used the water operated choke. I found this on fleabay if it's any good for you. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/286451220139 This way you don't need specially shaped pipes and just connect the manifold straight to the heater. Mind you, the silicon pipes are a damn sight cheaper.

Another question regarding the 'stat'. Are they a tight fit? I can't remember because when a mk3 was my daily driver I was 20 years old, I'm 61 at the end of the year!!! Yes, the rubber ring is fitted behind it but it may be the original because the 'stat didn't have one with it when I bought it. 20260723_143053.mp4

Heydrien Flux... "you over" (sic) are another one. I think I've mentioned this before. They took my renewal about a month early "to save me the trouble" and emailed me to thank me for my payment! It was about 120 quid more than the current classic policy (at the time). I called to complain and was told that "even though my car was SORNED, it "HAD to be insured, by law!" If my car was stolen from my lockup and buried in concrete by the person who took it. Once recovered, "I would be prosecuted by the police, for owning a vehicle without insurance"!!! Work that one out if you can. So I carefully explained what the word 'SORN' meant, cancelled the policy, made sure that he refunded my money and today, I am with RH. I've no complaints at all about them guys.

Following on from the brakes issue. This evening I decided to replace the back shocks. Remind me, if ever I have a lapse of judgement when buying a car in the future, NEVER to by a French car ever again! I started the job around half 6, "still plenty of daylight for a pair of back shocks" I thought. Ohhhh nooooo. Gone are the days of my first job, Kack Fit 1982, fitting a pair of Cortina/Escort (or anything else really) back shocks in about 1/2 an hour or less. This one, yes ONE left rear shock absorber has taken me from half 6 'ish' to about 10:15!!!!! I jacked it in due to poor light. Now I have to do it all over again tomorrow for the drivers side. It must be all French cars, because my MOT guy said to me, when I was getting shut of my Trusty (floor very rusty) old Toyota Yaris Verso, "DON'T buy a Renault OR a Nissan!" edit; So that's Dacia out of contention.

Not all the smaller engines. My sister had a Mk2 Fiesta 950 and literally could not pull the skin off a rice pudding. My 950 was listed on the log sheet as 957(hc) L. The (hc) for high compression! On a run out to buy an ebay item once, near spaghetti, junction I actually had the needle go past the maximum indicated 100mph! After that, number 3 little end would start to rumble a little bit after 75/80!

On my old GT, I actually had the pads down to the metal once. On a day trip to Rhyl. Luckily my mate in his Mk4 and his G/F tagged along with us, (us being me and my best mate) and he had an old set in his boot which he gave to me and I swapped them over at the side of a Welsh country lane. Ahh, the good old days.

When I had my Mk1 Fiestas, an 1100L first then a 957 (hc)L (much quicker than the 1.1L) I used to buy 1.3/1.6 front pads as they were harder material. The down side was that the discs would wear out quicker!

I took my Peugeot in for it MOT almost 12 months ago. Arnold Clark do/did a video assessment for my viewing pleasure. "The front pads are getting a bit thin and the discs are starting to 'groove'," He said, he also showed where the rear shocks were getting rusty on the bottoms. Finding a cheap pair is like looking for the Holy Grail, they are stupid money and GSF don't have any in stock anywhere! So, back to the discs and pads. "A bit thin" he said, I didn't know just how thin he meant the pads were/are! Why can't I rotate my pictures? I have them the correct way up in my 'pictures' folder but here, they just go onto their side!

Long ago, in a galaxy far far away from here, there was a young lad with a 2000 GT Mk3 Cortina. His uncle, a builder, had a Mazda B1800 pickup truck and told him that if the lad would brush paint his truck he would pay him and gift him the Rallygiant spotlights on the front of it. Truck painted and he fitted the Rallygiants to his GT and everything was fine. Many years passed, the GT was 'taken out' by nature and possibly a numpty in a Talbot Sunbeam (another long story). Years later, in the lads midlife crisis, he decides to revisit his youth and buys a 1600 XL Mk3 Cortina (he couldn't find another 1976 2000 GT at the time). He spotted another pair of Rallygiants on a VW forum and travelled far (28 miles to Salford) to purchase them. Now he had to fabricate mounting brackets, the same as the ones on his GT as the XL had pre drilled holes in the front valance, like the GT. To cut a long story short ("GET ON WITH IT!!") What would you go for? These, which were 25 quid from a local friendly car parts shop? The Salford Rallygiants? With the covers just for a giggle, they won't stay on! Or these, which I have stashed away in a 'safe place' somewhere, but exactly where? That escapes my aging mind at the moment!

Err, do you have a thermostat fitted and if you do, is it stuck in the open position?

Nah, it was an old one and she won't miss it, we have a drawer full!

Thanks for that. I shall have a look tomorrow and see what I have.

£32.50 fitted, with a years guarantee! Oh, sorry I was back in 1982 for a moment then and my first job when I left school. Seeing the diagram took me back to KackFit for a moment. Another Kackfit tip is, when/if you or anybody has to remove the front/down pipe, take the sealing ring and hold it about a foot off the floor and drop it. If it goes "TING" it's OK, if it goes "DINK" it's most likely cracked. If you can't get the back end high enough to "corckscrew" it over the axle, try disconnecting the left rear shock absorber from the axle and move it out of the way, that'll give you a bit more wiggle room. We used to scare some Cortina owners by having the rear wheels almost at the very end of the ramp, with the boot just sitting out in space. That gave us plenty of room to screw the back box into position.

Update. The day before and again today, I did the fresh water and dishwasher tablet trick and the water is still a bit orange, although not as much silt in it this time. I also adjusted the tappets, as per the Haynes manual. 0.20mm and 0.22mm (cold) and it still sounds like a black cab. No clearly visible excessive wear on the cam lobes so my next diagnostic guess would be worn followers. I still have the original head (complete) which was not as noisey as this one (which is a lead free Sierra head, I dunno what size though. 1.6 or 2.0. Any identifying marks?) that I bought from 'Janey', before I was unceremoniously booted off the MTOC site, for refusing to pay the membership randsom! So maybe I'll try running it with the cam cover off to try and detect which lobe/s is/are the offending item/s and swap it/them over. Oh, the leaking garage roof has finally been resealed after 15 years of reporting it! Today, the car got a sort of wash as it was raining when I was working on it. So whilst it was nice and wet, I took an old dirty tea towel and wiped the car down, mainly to get rid of the cement residue. Tomorrow, it'll probably be covered in dirty greasy streaks. Still, it'll detract from the rust coming through the paintwork I suppose!

Unfortunately, going for short drives is out of the question due to the lack of brakes, so I agree, it's probably clogged up with silt, especially as I pulled the bottom pipe off thus emptying the system, only for more silt to appear in the rad when I refilled it with fresh water and restarted it. I really want to get the old fella (my cars are always male, it makes them less tempremental) drivable again this year. Especially as the previous owner bought a brown 2Ltr GXL (spotted and posted on this site a few years back) and it doesn't even show up on the DVLA site anymore!

That's like Butlins Pwllheli in north Wales. I had a few very enjoyable holidays there as a kid, even took my at the time, GF/fiance' (that didn't last thankfully) along with my younger sister and her boyfriend there for a day visit back in 87 when I had my awful Mk4. Yearrrrs later, I took my wife, but it's now a Haven site and Jeez what a disappointment?!!! Nothing is free anymore. EVERYTHING is pay pay pay. No fairground, no snooker hall, no roller rink, no train or chairlifts to the beach, which was a struggle for the Mrs who was walking with a stick at the time. Haven took a great camp, filled it with static caravans and turned it into a sh!t camp. I'll never return.

I remember when I was about 14, we went to Butlins Skegness and the kettles in the chalets (we went with friends) were totally choked up with lime stone. I can't call it scale because it was like a solid rock inside, covering the element, the base and half way up the sides. We all suffered from mild constipation for the week we were there! The water must have been clogging up our internal plumbing as well!

No I didn't, I'll try it again now that I've remembered where my thermometer is! A nice long glass one from work! 88 is stamped on the 'stat, so now I'll have to double check it. It was a bit scaled up, kind of like what you get in a kettle. I know that varies depending on your location, but it wasn't anything like the kettles on the east coast. They look like the inside of Wookie Hole! Our water is pretty soft in this neck of the woods but, I don't know how long that thermostat has been sitting in that engine, and remember, I bought it from Wisbech! Well that's effed that up! I boiled a kettle 'cos I couldn't be bothered waiting for the pan to boil. I poured the boiled water into the pan, turned the ring on full, suspended the thermostat in the water and placed the thermostat, which I've had for years, into the water and CRACK! The bulb on the bottom broke into pieces and there was a nice little blob of silver mercury rolling around in the bottom of the pan! Yes, I should have put it in the cold water and waited but, I'm 60 now and I can't waste what time I have left.

Hi, I'm back again. I took the 'stat out, brought it home and tried it in a pan of boiling water, it eventually opened. Now let's go back a few years, around about the time I put the car away in the lockup I had the radiator re--cored. A year or three (maybe more) afterwards I noticed that the bottom of the rad where the galleries go into the bottom part, was a bit wet. "Great!" I thought, so I bought some radweld stuff and put that in. Now it cured the weeping rad but do you think that maybe it caused the thermostat to stick shut? As I said, it eventually opened in the pan, but not as quick as I expected. This afternoon I went to the lockup with two Ad-Blue containers full of fresh water (didn't take either of my big water fire extinguishers because after inspection, neither of them have a tyre valve on them, so I can't refill and repressure them! So no back flushing today! ) I took the bottom hose off, emptied the block, refitted it and put the housing back on without the 'stat. Filled it with clean water and started it up. Now I don't know if it is the head gasket of not! It's stopped flowing out of the top of the radiator but there are some small bubbles to start with and a little steam out of the tail pipe! I was just going to get a new gasket and take the head off today but I said to myself, "That's a job for another day!" (lazy git) no thermostat.mp4

Me too. I haven't driven 'Red' on the road since his last MOT back in October 2014!

Me too, I now realise how my old schoolmate felt when I gave him a drive a few years back. I've spoilt myself with my other cars because turning the wheel now feels like I need arms like Geoff Capes!

I never thought of taking the 'stat out. I'll try that next time I go over to the lockup. I'll take a flask of boiling (almost) water, also I'll take my full size 'water' fire extinguisher with me as a stand in for a hose pipe, see if I can reverse flush some of that brown silt out! Watch this space.......

1/ yes it does. 2/my hose pipe won't reach the garage which is 1.8 to 2.0 miles away, depending which route I take! 3/ yes, my finger can vouch for that as in the video. 4/ so am I. Thanks for your input.