Cars of Crackers: -aborted- Accidental midweek shite collection

[Crackers]

Tomorrow we head for the Mid-Hants Railway for some photos. Need to wash it beforehand! Should be a good stress test for the clutch, which in recent use seems to have a mind of its own in terms of the judder issue. 

Hopefully I'll get the car on a ramp soonish to have a good look, too. 

[Crackers]

That's gone about as well as could be expected. 

[Crackers]

I have a feeling we're out of petrol. I got to this roundabout and it just stopped. 

The gauge is showing about a quarter and the light isn't on, but the fuel pump suddenly got louder as if it had nothing getting to it. 

Luckily I am with mates so someone is about to bring me a can of pez which I will launch in and see if we get any luck. Otherwise it'll be the big yellow bus taking us home as there's nothing in the engine bay that's obviously wrong. 

 

Post-FTP Update: One of the fuel lines had given up at the rear of the car and emptied my fuel tank all along the A31, as traced out by a nice line of petrol behind the car up to the point it ran out. That was about 1/3 of a tank of Super Unleaded @ 155p/Litre waving goodbye to me through my rear view mirror  

[Tadhg Tiogar]

12 minutes ago, Crackers said:

That's gonna about as well as could be expected. 

Is that your first P6 FTP?

[Crackers]

6 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Is that your first P6 FTP?

Yep. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

2 minutes ago, Crackers said:

Yep. 

Congratulations. 

[beko1987]

Sorry to read this, how's it going? 

[Crackers]

A bloke has just turned up in a Healey who happened to have some fuel line with him. He is currently seeing if there's anything he can do with it. I was quite happy to wait for the big yellow bus to be fair as I didn't bring much in the way of tools or kit. 

 

[Crackers]

Home safe and sound. The legend in the picture above had some spare fuel hose (in his rather beastly modified Healy 3000) and managed to seal up the leak for now. 

So now, job no. 487b is to go over the fuel lines and see what's what...

 

 

For posterity, have this picture of the AA van I coincidentally parked next to after limping it to a petrol station. Not impressed with the AA (who I am now breakdown covered with) tonight, the van man just had a look, said he can't do anything unless I log a job, which I duly did, then he drove off. AA app then throws a hissy fit because the MOT is expired (yes, I know this problem would probably have been caught on an MOT), so I ring them instead. 25 minutes on hold then their end drops the call. 

Thank your chosen deity for good samaritans, eh? 

 

[Crackers]

Also, clutch update. Fine as I left home, as usual, and for the 90 mins or so. 

Once at the railway it started playing up right in cue, presenting a horrible judder when pulling away from a stand. 

Thought "Sod this" and gave it an absolute bootful in 4th slipping the clutch up a hill to try and strip off the top layer of friction material. Felt utterly brutal and stank to high hell but - bugger me - it fixed it immediately. So, that means there's definitely contamination of some form getting onto the clutch. But still doesn't explain why this phenomenon is only present when hot; starting from cold, it behaves perfectly every time, even when it was parked up previously the the judder evident. 

I R BAFFLED. 

Anyway: Train.Locomotive. 

[JeeExEll]

I was right  behind a 3500S in traffic about an hour ago, could hear it's V8 grumbling as bloke drove it, then traffic cleared and there was an open road ahead.   Bloke 'gave it the beans', what a fantastic noise from an old antique and it fucking shifted up the road, quite surreal, like something from Monty Python.  Almost PMSL.  Life is for living, made my day.

I'd love a high-power but standard looking 3500S, probably my ultimate realistic car.  In the top 5 anyway.

[tooSavvy]

Ha.... ^ ^ ^ Quite a few cars round here make me feel like I'm standing still {Oi, no milkfloat jokes!} .....

Usually 'blacked out big Aldis'.

🧐

 

[Crackers]

17 minutes ago, JeeExEll said:

I was right  behind a 3500S in traffic about an hour ago, could hear it's V8 grumbling as bloke drove it, then traffic cleared and there was an open road ahead.   Bloke 'gave it the beans', what a fantastic noise from an old antique and it fucking shifted up the road, quite surreal.  Almost PMSL.  Life is for living.

I'd love a high-power but standard looking 3500S, probably my ultimate realistic car.  In the top 5 anyway.

They aren't slow cars are they! Mine on standard running gear is still perfectly capable of showing a clean pair of heels to a large proportion of modern stuff. I tend to find myself driving around lapping up the torque, only up to about 2500rpm most of the time. But then if I come to a short slip road and need to get a move on, winding it up to 4500rpm through 1st-3rd gives an impressive turn of pace for a 50 year old barge. 

A 3.9 or 4.6 would probably be a right beast but you'd be wanting to upgrade the brakes and suspension to keep up with it.

[JeeExEll]

On 8/29/2021 at 2:38 PM, Crackers said:

They aren't slow cars are they! Mine on standard running gear is still perfectly capable of showing a clean pair of heels to a large proportion of modern stuff. I tend to find myself driving around lapping up the torque, only up to about 2500rpm most of the time. But then if I come to a short slip road and need to get a move on, winding it up to 4500rpm through 1st-3rd gives an impressive turn of pace for a 50 year old barge. 

A 3.9 or 4.6 would probably be a right beast but you'd be wanting to upgrade the brakes and suspension to keep up with it.

My dad's pal had a 72 then a 74 3500S, good low-mileage ones, they replaced Mk1  3-litre Capris.   A bit thirsty but what would you expect??  I think 20 mpg in general was to be expected, unless you really thrashed it. 

The 74 one was red with black leather seats, absolutely gorgeous. Sold around late 80s and replaced with a Rover 800 of some sort. 

[Crackers]

13 minutes ago, JeeExEll said:

I think 20 mpg in general is to be expected

That's probably fairly accurate, mine will (I think) get to upper 20s on a gentle motorway run, although not when it has a self-emptying fuel system!

[Crackers]

Ramble time; feel free to ignore.

As the mornings start to get a bit grey again and October being just around the corner, I start weighing up options again for this car for the next few months. I need to find some way to get it under cover over winter, as I don't have a garage and I don't think it's feasible to put it in my parents' one, it'll just be in the way.

Motivation to get on with anything (not just car related) is low at the moment, but I've been saving up a bit of money where I can over the last few months and also had a bit of a result at work a couple of weeks ago which gives me a new option: Send the car off to a decent garage for a while with a bit of a shopping list attached. I don't want to (and can't afford to) get everything sorted in one go, but to get the car into a position where it'll pass an MOT and drive without many of its present issues would be nice, so that I can really use it a lot next year - it's insured for 5000 miles a year and I'd like to use up every single one of them in 2022.

I know it's not really the AS way, but it'd take a weight off my shoulders and would set me on the way to having a properly usable car. Over the next few weeks I'll probably start getting some quotes for some suspension work, replace the crank seals if needed to fix* the leaks/stop the clutch issue, make a nicer job of the fuel lines, and maybe a couple of other less pressing bits depending on the money.

 

In the immediate future I need to get my ass in gear and give both the P6 and the Focus an oil+filter change, get a pair of new tyres on the Focus as they're more cracked than the windows of an H Samuel branch after a riot, and correct the bodge made to the P6 fuel return line after the FTP on Saturday.

I'll leave you with this photo taken by a friend just minutes before it all went a bit Pete Tong. Ignore the streaks on the bonnet, I didn't have any cleaning kit to hand and needed to get a lot of bird shet off the paintwork in a hurry.

[Low Horatio gearbox]

On 8/28/2021 at 9:13 PM, Crackers said:

Also, clutch update. Fine as I left home, as usual, and for the 90 mins or so. 

Once at the railway it started playing up right in cue, presenting a horrible judder when pulling away from a stand. 

Thought "Sod this" and gave it an absolute bootful in 4th slipping the clutch up a hill to try and strip off the top layer of friction material. Felt utterly brutal and stank to high hell but - bugger me - it fixed it immediately. So, that means there's definitely contamination of some form getting onto the clutch. But still doesn't explain why this phenomenon is only present when hot; starting from cold, it behaves perfectly every time, even when it was parked up previously the the judder evident. 

I R BAFFLED. 

Anyway: Train.Locomotive. 

Possibly, possibly this is your rear main seal.   As the engine warms and so does the oil which also becomes thinner and this combined with all the thrashing about of the internals sloshing oil about  can defeat the old rope seal. It would be with checking your oil breathers and fire traps too tho it doesnt sound like they are clogged up - tends to make the engine push oil out of everywhere, I know it would make my dipstick unseat on mine!

The rope seal is pretty cheap (£15 ish I belive) and will cure it for a decent period. The other alternative is a modern rubber seal but this requires the engine out for machining and that's proper spendy.  You have my sympathies as my only FTP was the reserve valve slowly opening on mine. Not an issue unless you've added an electric pump at the tank end, which I had. This resulted on thr pump merrily circulating most of the fuel round and round instead if to the engine. And yeah.. fuel line replacements are on my list

[Crackers]

2 minutes ago, Low Horatio gearbox said:

Possibly, possibly this is your rear main seal. 

See below^^^^

2 hours ago, Crackers said:

replace the crank seals if needed to fix* the leaks/stop the clutch issue

AFAIK the block was machined out for a conventional rubber when the engine was rebuilt in the previous owner's tenure. However other seals on the engine are leaking 3000 miles later so it's entirely possibly that the rear main is dud too.

Flame traps etc will be replaced when I carry out a service in the coming weeks if* I manage to find a free day on a weekend.

 

[Low Horatio gearbox]

I should pay more attention..

Possibly your engine may be pressurising the  crank case, even with a modern press fit seal they can leak and fail without any crank case pressure. 

Check the breather hoses and traps. Tbh, you can reuse them both- wash the flame traps out with carb /brake cleaner and an old wire coat hanger to poke into the hoses. I recommend this as they are pretty much reusable they tend to clog up quickly, sometimes a few hundred miles is enough, especially short journeys  where the hot oil vapour condenses in the cooler ( by comparison) pipes and traps before the engine bay warms up. Mine were grim (packed solid) and its something I check every 1-2 months. 

Honestly mine pumped out oil as fast as you could fill it (genuinely if I did under 15 mph you could follow the oil trail) and I was at the point of writing git all off as a steep learning curve. Doing the 3 hoses 2 flame traps and rear filter  pretty much cured it.

[Crackers]

7 minutes ago, Low Horatio gearbox said:

Doing the 3 hoses 2 flame traps and rear filter  pretty much cured it.

Will see how things go after a service. All of the above is on the list, I just need to get my arse in gear and do something about it.

[barrett]

Hey @Crackers at least your leak was only a bit of pez - my one appears to have dumped the contents of the diff all over the street so fuck knows what that's all about. It obviously got sick of me telling people how yeah it's totally fine to use a crappy 50-year old car as a daily because it 'just works'

[Fumbler]

20 hours ago, barrett said:

Hey @Crackers at least your leak was only a bit of pez - my one appears to have dumped the contents of the diff all over the street so fuck knows what that's all about. It obviously got sick of me telling people how yeah it's totally fine to use a crappy 50-year old car as a daily because it 'just works'

Pinion seal on the diff gone perhaps?

[Crackers]

Y'ever wake up and think to yourself, "I fancy another car?" 

Me too. 

Dad and I are off to somewhere near Skegvegas today to look at a new handbagcar. If it comes home with me I will update later. 

[Crackers]

I've bought a car. 

The BBMF gave me a flypast to celebrate! 

 

[brownnova]

3 hours ago, Crackers said:

Y'ever wake up and think to yourself, "I fancy another car?" 

 

Most days M9

 Wishing you the best of British with the collection run home! 

[wuvvum]

I hope it came with a full tank of fuel...

[Crackers]

So yes, I bought one. 

And I like it. 

Lots. 

😁

 

[Crackers]

Amazingly, the petrol station up the road from the sellers house had no queue. Result! 

[High Jetter]

Where lieth this miraculous wonder of a fuel vendor? Tiddler looks good, low milez and a pretty good MOT history too, but I wonder where the corrosion went?

[brownnova]

Excellent choice! MX5s are awesome.