Ian Vincent

I signed up ages ago so what does that make me?

I have to admit that whilst I’m happy with just the block and ancillaries mounted off the gearbox fixings, before I fit the head I support the engine underneath with an old beer crate and couple of blocks of wood. I then feel more comfortable hanging off the torque wrench for the head and pulley bolts. Rgds Ian

Many years ago I had a rusty Alfa Romeo (there’s a surprise) and to get it through an MoT I started filling some of the top hat sections under the floor with PU foam. The plan was to cover them in fibre glass mat and follow up with a liberal dose of underseal. Mick is right the stuff does expand - it blew the first top hat section I tried it on wide open. The metal had rusted away to nothing. Rgds Ian

Thks Iain & Peter. I did think that Iain was being optimistic about my skills when he said use a ball pein hammer. I was going to sort out some sort of punch to do the job with. As it happens, I have some thick walled tube that will suit perfectly as the die and plenty of rod / old bolts that I can fashion into a suitable punch. Rgds Ian PS I also have a very small drip from the front timing chain case seal but I don't feel like removing the shroud to access it yet, and it is only very small. PPS According to the WSM technical data, the tightening torque for the sump

Reading this post made me wonder how many other contributors to this forum have dark secrets they are too embarrassed to own up to? I have quite a few.

Having had an oil leak from the sump for a while and because the car was due an oil change, I was motivated by this post to try and address the problem. So I put the car up on ramps and dropped the sump (after draining the oil) cleaned everything religiously and refitted the sump roughly in line with Iain’s process and guess what it still leaks and clearly it’s from the bolt holes. That’s the bit of Iain’s process I didn’t follow - my fault. Anyway, just to be clear, which side should I hit with the hammer? The top of the flange or the underside ? Rgds Ian

You could always use a slosh sealant on your existing tank. FWIW, my tank has its outlet on the LHS of the car. Rgds Ian

And don’t use it for lighting a BBQ either. Rgds Ian

Back in 2010 or thereabouts when I rebuilt my engine and the Mad Marx seal didn’t exist, I fitted a LR lip seal to my engine. The instructions included a requirement to drill two 3/8” diameter holes through the rear main bearing cap, presumably to allow the oil to drain back from the area between the bearing and the new seal. I notice that the current Moss instructions for installing this seal (and the Revington ones) no longer include this step. Is that because they no longer think it’s needed or do they actually recommend not doing it? Does anyone out there know? Rgds Ian

True, but the punctures were with my daily driver that was running on 45% profile tyres which you can’t put tubes in. Rgds Ian

Top job Bob. Rgds Ian

So if you had your crank crack tested by a reputable engineering shop (who understands TRs and does all the engineering work for Neil Revington) prior to it being reground would you expect them to find that sort of problem? Rgds Ian

I don’t doubt you at all Stuart, it’s just on the last couple of occasions I’ve asked a tyre place to fix a puncture there have been reasons why they couldn’t and I had to buy a new one. I assume that is their default position. Rgds Ian

Brilliant stuff Hamish although I’m not sure about the commentary, “Bottoming is not just something you get on an Italian tram” …..very non PC and I loved it. Rgds Ian

In my experience this would just be another excuse for tyre places not to repair a puncture. Anything within an inch of the sidewall is a no-no as is any tyre that is down to about 4mm tread depth. Rgds Ian