N Dentressangle

I like these. And the K series gasket is actually pretty easy DIY - I did a thread on replacing the one in our 8v Metro. Sweet engine, decent handling and a good car.

The day of the Scimitar has got to come soon. They've never seemed to be worth what they ought to be. Pretty, fast for its time and practical - what's not to like? Plus the electrics are brilliant* and they never* catch fire 😉

Pretty much. They riveted (riveted? I ask you) the bowl on about 20 deg rotated wrongly. It should be fitted like this: so that the alignment screws are at 9 and 12 o clock, with the fixed screw at about 4-30. Nasty rivets drilled out and proper self-tappers fitted into the holes already there in the wing in the right places. I mean, it took effort to fuck this up, but even more effort to work out wtf they'd done wrong and how to fix it. They'd added an extra third adjustment screw at about 4 o clock just to confuse me - god knows where they'd got that from.

So, what's new? Another trip to Bristol and back, this time with a set of new badges front and rear: On a similar theme, WTF is my steering wheel badge? How do you actually not bother replacing this when you've removed it? The stuff simply 'missing' from this car just mystifies me. I'm still waiting for a new battery clamp and other bits n bobs to turn up in our random postal service, but finally there arrived today a much longed for delivery from our man and Jess the cat: Wasted no time slotting this into its rightful place: Much better. Next on the list was to find out where the feckin exhaust is leaking. Apart from the obvious risk of being gassed, the aroma of my expensive cologne has been overwhelmed by stink of exhaust fumes on my person at the end of journey. That won't do, so up in the air with the Spit and play hunt the leak. Needn't have bothered jacking it up - leak was in plain view at the manifold / downpipe joint, and a nut and bolt sorted the problem: N/S headlamp seemed to be making a bid for freedom, despite (or maybe because of) the attention lavished on it only a few days ago. So off came the cowl again (glad I retapped those threads) and time for a good look at what was going on: Anyone want to guess what the ham-fisted gibbon who fitted this headlamp bowl fucked up?

I had the same trouble with my D1 brakes. Ended up bleeding them again really thoroughly with a helper slamming the pedal down, which seems to have sorted the problem. I'm guessing there's an air trap somewhere in the front circuit.

Another job that needed sorting was tuning the twin SU HS4 carbs. When I bought the car it wouldn't idle until I'd twiddled with one of the carb idle screws so I knew that not all was well in Carbland. It also stalled coming back from Bristol as I got off the M5 and stopped at the roundabout, so I wasn't entirely surprised to remove the air box and find this: Yep, that's a pair of waxstat equipped carbs. If you've never come across them, the waxstat is one of BL's more stupid 'innovations', an already intensely competitive field. There is basically a hollow button sitting at the bottom of each of the two tubes you can see. It's filled with wax. As the engine heats up, the wax expands and pushes a piston in the top of the button up. In turn this pushes up the jet in the carb and leans off the mixture. It's intended to be an economy device, but they're basically utter shit and end up leaning the mixture off so much that the car stalls when hot, or struggles to run at all off the choke. You can buy a fixed jet kit for about 80 quid, but that's not the shite way, is it? This, on the other hand, is a fix which costs exactly 4p: The waxstat button is at the top of the pic, and below is the fix. Two pennies give you a perfect thickness replacement and with the piston sitting on top of them allow you to have fixed jets for 4p! Plenty more detail and explanation on the net if you're inexplicably interested in this. So, having done this mod I balanced the carbs by ear as best I could, set the mixture to something plausible and set the idle. They're not perfect - I'll get the Colourtune on them tomorrow and sort the mixture out properly - but they're better than they were. I'm contemplating buying one of these: https://www.halfords.com/tools/hand-tools/all-hand-tools/gunson-carbalancer-495254.html as I don't trust my ear to gauge hiss. I can't really tell the difference - maybe my tinnitus is actually that shit. So if anyone's got one kicking around they don't want any more I'll happily buy it off you!

Looking on the internet, I think my visitor was a Sparrowhawk. Happy to be corrected if you know different.

Me too. Plus I wanted the latest, most practical version for its driveability, so a cute little Mk3 was never on the cards. In that vein, some more fettling has been achieved. I persevered with sealed beam headlights on my LR Series 3 for as long as I could, but they're just not bright enough for modern traffic. Even connected via their own loom with direct feed and earth to the battery they're still too dim, especially when faced with an oncoming modern car festooned with the latest wanky LEDs. I ordered a pair of Wipac Quadoptics (standard Defender fitment) and when Royal Mail could eventually be arsed to bring them I got on with fitting them. BAD THINGS had happened to the alloy headlamp cowls. Neither was held on with the proper fasteners - one had bodged in metric bolts fitted, and the other had just been completely fucked with the wrong size bolts over the years and was clinging on by one bolt. I ended up tapping the holes on that one out to M8: but found the correct BSF nut and bolts for the other side. Some muppet had also fitted the rubber gasket between the bowl and headlamp retainer, rather than between the bowl and wing. Meant the cowl wouldn't sit correctly so I drilled out the nasty rivets holding the bowl in and bolted it properly to the wing with gasket in between. All now sits together nicely. I put Halfords 200% brighter H4 bulbs in the quadoptics. Spot the difference between sealed beam and new set up: Aroundabout this point I had a visitor to the garage. The front doors were open and I heard a commotion, looked up and saw this character: I'm no ornithologist - it's obviously a hawk, but what kind? Clearly evolutionary effort was expended on flying and talon development rather than intellect, because the daft sod couldn't be persuaded to fly out again. Eventually I hit on the idea of turning the lights off so the light outside was brighter, which did the trick and off he / she flew!

So what was it like? Actually OK. The positives: ride and comfort are fine plenty warm enough, even on a 0 dec C day like today - heater works well stable and easy on the motorway - spent a lot of time in the the outside lane fast enough - overdrive seems to make 3k rpm the right cruising speed, giving 69mph which is fast enough these days to pass many people. Had the odd blast up to 80mph which felt fine, with plenty more to come lots of niceness from other traffic - no issue in changing lanes or being let out On the down side: the loud exhaust is bloody awful. I've never liked loud exhausts, and this one's appauling. Louder than my motorbike, and needs swapping pronto. Will probably go for a plain stainless (or even mild steel) original the horns are knackered. Now replaced - see next post some other drivers (ie school run mums) just ignore you and pull out and bully you. Even my 8yr old daughter said 'can't they see you?' sticky throttle cable needs lubing I think that's it. Bear in mind I'm comparing it with a motorbike. If you came from a modern car it would probably be awful, but the fact I arrived at work today not dressed as a Captain Scott tribute act or freezing to death is a good thing.

Not even nearly 🤣

Well, this car was bought to go to Bristol on the the M5, and that's what it did today. Here's the proof in the form of a pic of her in Trenchard St multi storey car park: Driving impressions to follow... Spoiler: we made it back

Love that. Easily worth the money. Needs saving

I reckon 12 or 13 years! All OK with you? You were selling a lot of garden furniture when we met 😎

Yes, you did!!! I owe you one, if I'm ever in a position to return the favour ❤️ Very much appreciated.

High. But you've stopped its tummy hurting for now, and that's the main thing. Well done on the fix!