Joey spud

It's really good to see this old survivor looking so tidy now Your smell isn't the paint coating on the exhaust getting nice and hot and releasing its newness smell that tends to disappears after a couple of heat cycles ?

I think with late registration Travelers they have been military vehicles from new and get miss assigned a reg number for the year they leave service.

My money would be no 18.

I can't visualise exactly what you mean but later fords did have the ability to set the pedal height with a hex bolt.

That's a good bit of progress and next logical step. If there's room drilling,bolting and extending the pedal stop tag makes good sense and won't cost anything but time. Looking at images online the tag looks longer does it look like the tip could have broken off of it at some point in its life ? If it were me I would extend the tag to level the pedal with the brake one fit a new cable and go from there.

Removing the pedal on a Sierra isn't that hard to do actually there's a bit more room compared to a Escort or Fiesta. It certainly can't hurt to replace the cable to see if it improves things.

That makes perfect sense actually. The clutch operating arm on a type9 gearbox pivots on its end so as the clutch wears (cover diaphragm spring comes out again)the arm will move away from the engine lengthening the inner cable and so pulling the pedal quadrant anticlockwise. Maybe if there's no free play left for the quadrant to take up the pedal has now risen up too far ? Needs a nice long bank holiday weekend to investigate or say bollocks and live with it as it is.

On the late Escorts and Fiesta there was a hex headed bolt on the pedal assy that was used to set the pedal height so I guess the tab design wasn't as durable as Ford had hoped. I honestly can't remember what I used to do to level up the pedals without actually being upside down in the foot well again to jog my memory. You could strip the ratchet and pedal apart then refit the pedal with just the pawl fitted to better see what has happened to the pedal stop tag and how to fix it. Maybe once you have it in pieces in front of you it should become clear what's causing the problem. Back in day there was a lot of cheap non ford ratchet repair kits washing around (Mafco brand in a plastic bag were popular) that did the job but the Ford kit in the blue/white box always fitted better and performed reliably unless your cable was seized or clutch was worn/heavy then the extra effort to push the pedal down would make them all randomly click or slip.

Yes that's the tab I remember that sets the pedal height. Does it look like a bit has snapped off it's end ? When the tab is correct (and the pedal is in the correct place) you can put your hand under the pedal and lift it up against this tab which releases the pawl from the quadrants teeth allowing it to be rotated and the cable unhooked from it. Can you bend this tab towards the pawl to lower the pedal ? I'm not going mad this tab is mentioned on this post too.

If you look from under/behind the pedal and up you should see the metal tag that the quadrant rests against to set the correct pedal height. Like I say it's been over twenty years since I last did one but I'm sure I'm not going mad.

I found this little union jack flag and bunged it on the Minor yesterday. When that black dog is constantly looking over my shoulder little tasks like this brighten my mood.

It's been twenty years plus since I last did a ford pedal ratchet and yes the pedal should be level with the brake. On the pedal box there is a metal tag/arm that the underside of the nylon quadrant rests against and so sets the pedal height. Over time this tag bends away from the quadrant allowing the pedal to ride up. With a bit of trial and error you can bend the tag back to it correct position but you may need to remove the pedal and ratchet first to see what's going on.

I've found a picture of the Fiesta diesel Moggy. Fair play and respect to anyone that'll go to the effort of engineering a 1.6D engine,Sierra box and MGB rear axle to fit in to a 60 year old Minor but my question is why ? No one can be that tight that they needed the diesel engines economy over a 1.4 or 1.6 zetec bolted in there instead.

Mr Ford bloke was comparing the Fiesta with the 205 and missing obvious elephant in the room that the little pug could come in 5 door flavour.

Now that's a half sensible mod. Keeping a big thirsty70's Vauxhall saloon on the road as a daily ride has to be applauded.

There's a Morris Minor with a 1.6D Escort van engine fitted on a MM group I browse. I can only guess it must be pure torture to pilot. Surely even a tired heavy breathing A series has to be better. Back in the nineties when these were popular and smoke testing became part of the MOT the leggy ones near me were an absolute bastard to get through. A doddle to do the cambelt on though as the inj pump was gear driven. I had a bit of a shock the first time I did a 1.8 and found two belts under the cover.

As it happens I took the winter cover off the Subaru yesterday and run him up and down the farm track. Not sure if it was stale fuel or the often moody Hitachi carb but he wasn't at all happy. It's still waiting for me to finish the repairs to the o/s rear inner wheel arch. I'd like to say this'll be the year but the new workshop is currently full of furniture and house hold tat.

I recently bought an old Casio watch off eBay, one that I've always hankered after but when it arrived it didn't have the crisp clean dial of the one on the listing but a rather cloudy one instead. It's like over the years a dusting of the luminous coating has transferred to the back of the crystal. So today after watching a YouTube clip of an American chap sitting on his bed successfully pull a similar watch apart I had a bash at taking the mechanism out of mine and giving it a clean up. A bit of Tesco's finest glass cleaner and a soft cloth and it's come up like new again.

Blimey five years already that's scary.

For years I was strictly a PG tips man but recently it started tasting rank,sort of florally so I've switched over to Yorkshire tea. Much better one bag gives a lovely strong brew.

Des. I'm sure you've seen this already but on eBay there's currently a Bond Bug for sale with an Invacar showing in background.

I was dragged up in Cliffe as a youngster so was chuffed to see this posted online recently. No idea what the bus is but the image was captured in Gravesend eight miles away.