PeteStupps

He's an optimist. Also after 95 quid for a pair of Austin-Healey engine mounts

Agreed. The number of people advertising totally rotten Mk1 / Mk2 Spitfire shells with the promise "These sell for £20k when restored" always amuses me. I have been watching at least three shiny mk2 Spits advertised for >£18k and they've all been sitting on carandclassic for at least a year. Actual prices paid is south of 10 grand from what I can tell.

I'm always envious of the cars that overtake or are overtaken by me in the Spit - they get to enjoy the beautiful car from the outside. Maybe your repeat offenders were just enjoying the view

Persuasive evidence Peter but do you buy into the conspiracy angle? I don't see how 'Bill Gates and big pharma' would have any sway with the state-run health industry in Britain. But is that me being hopelessly naive?

Now that's a very good idea. I've just got one of those flexi-adaptors for the dremel and it's not ideal when you can't turn the thing on and off without a 3rd hand. How did the driver's side door come out, or is that still work-in-progress? I'm very interested in all the moulding business, it's completely alien to me.

Ha! Re-finding interesting things on facebook is frustrating even when you know which group to look it, so trying to find something someone else has seen on an unknown group is probably a challenge too far! I'm on about 6 different Triumph group pages, the most useful being the 1300 & 1500 FWD one - niche models which aren't popular on the usual forums. It's just not a useful format for a technical forum, at all.

Lol. You've done well with the weather! I usually have a small tube of suncream in the glovebox for such occasions. Applying while moving is a fool's errand though.

@Escadrille Ecosse I can't take any credit, it's Nick B who did the thesis! An MSc was more than enough for me

That sounds very interesting and worthwhile. Terminator will be smashing the phone dispatchers out of the way in due course

Haha! Oops... Was that the lead from the condenser, or the coil? Was any other damage done in the process, which you might have missed at first? If it's a Delco dissy make sure the U-shaped LT terminals are making good contact where they slot behind the points spring (if that makes sense!). The fit is usually piss-poor, although less bad with NOS points.

Is this happening only when driving, or when stationary? Does it clear as soon as you bring the revs down? Does a bit of choke make any difference? Could be any number of things but if changing the points caused it to get worse, I'd start by taking off the distributor cap and thoroughly examining everything nearby. Are there any fraying wires that might get earthed when the base plate moves? If nothing obvious, then maybe swap points & condenser for a known-decent set if available. I'd also check the manifold nuts are all tight and there aren't any other likely air leaks, ap

Sounds like a typical "5 minute job" that expands to take most of the afternoon. Last year my 1300 FWD carburettor (Stromberg) was flooding. After much messing about with float height and getting soaked in petrol, the flooding was halted. Then when I went to start it, the solenoid suddenly wasn't doing anything (it's close to carb so maybe got doused in fuel). Removing the dead solenoid, the lug on the big +ve battery cable cracked and disintegrated. At which point I called it a day...

Ill-fitting or unsuitable parts are such a widespread problem, it's more surprising when new stuff actually fits. It's good that you could sort them out on your lathe but I'm with Nick, hopefully you let Canleys know about the issue. So they'll know it wasn't just me being an idiot! I had conveniently forgotten about this issue - and will do again now, only to remember sometime in the future when I need to remove my front hubs and can't get the inner bearing races off the stub axles...

Spot on

I concur, and it depends on the platform. I think the news website has become too sympathetic to 'identity politics' personally, but maybe that's just me getting older and more misanthropic.