GhiaMk4/5

I like this car a lot, reminds me so much of my old 2000E, there's a good selection of other projects that it shares company with.

Stoke had Yates's very good machine shop, unfortunately long gone, so if l wanted any machining, I dont know who I would use!!

Always liked Marcos, welcome and hope you get some stopping power.

Find out who supplies Rally design, you don't want problems again, it takes the shine off such a brilliant looking car and it's not your balls up, my 2000E as mentioned before was wonky, and it really got my goat. Could be worse, to put my wife's E class right, the rear suspension set up is nearly £2k, I'm looking at alternatives!!

10 years ago there seemed to be a fair few Otasun Taunuses on the road in Turkey, all seemed to be fairly solid, it seemed like they didn't discard anything out there.

I never promised myself a Sierra, but l purchased one, it was in my defense a 2.8i Ghia 4x4 estate, which towed a 26foot twin axle caravan with ease, for some reason, I liked the cologne engine, never realised they put a Sierra front end on a Mk5.

Been on Alibaba, prices for coil springs are ridiculously cheap, so is everything else, but it is Chinese quality, I just purchased some led bulbs for the Merc, supposedly UK seller, got them today, from CHINA, one has failed already!!!!

Perhaps he just likes a change and making a bit of money, he could also be a Libran, who generally are very indecisive!!!!??? Guess what birth sign I am!!! I rest my case, more wheels than JBW and never enough cars!!!

There are several cars that have the rubber pad, I fit a lot of coil overs to customers cars, Ford Focus, BMW etc or make some out of a scrap lorry inner tube, Burton Power are only a supplier, it' buy rubbish and sell for lots of profit, the L bracket or other method should keep spring in check, or a small u clamp to lock it in position.

Another idea, a lot of springs sit on a rubber pad, would mean dismantling your suspension to get one in, unless you split it and fed it in under the spring. I know from experience the 3/4/5 springs are under a lot of pressure, so you shouldn't really be getting this problem, perhaps a build up of painted surfaces not allowing the spring to grip metal to metal so to speak.

Make an L bracket coming off your anti roll bar bolts to keep the spring in situ, or weld a sort of u clamp onto the bottom arm that will lock the spring in place, not ideal, or back to standard springs.

I'd go with the Yuasa. The main thing is using it or keeping it trickle charged or l have a solar panel that l charge some of my batteries with, just had a £100.00 Exide battery fail on my daughter's T4, luckily 3 year guartantee, so free replacement. High street is always better than internet IMO. Just purchased a Yuasa battery from Halfords for a motorbike, wouldn't crank the bike over, went to main stealer, £5.00 more than Halfords and he reckoned the Halfords one was counterfeit and he said it was a weight thing!!!

Go for the biggest one that will fit your battery tray, or is your battery in the boot, and go with the highest cranking ampage, Eurocarparts often have a good offer for Exide batteries. I take it you aren't still on flat terminals, they are normally more money than round terminal batteries.

I have some 30 year old Yokohama's, 235/55/13, NOS, stored in a cellar, in the past couple of years, l have had a couple of blow outs, both on quality tyres, change of underwear needed, both tyres 2018, so what's going on there, yours are probably made of real rubber and will be fine and hopefully my Yoko's will be the same. What are the rims off? They look good.

I may do that, don't like getting short changed!!!!