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Nick Jones

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  1. SM has taken to doing quizz nights with her mates/colleagues and I’ve now twice been roped in as reserve due to drop-outs. Most recently last night - a charity fundraiser at local farm shop cafe. Somewhat to our surprise (their “secret weapon” is on holiday), we won. ‘‘Twas bloody hard and our answer rate was dismal so somewhat surprised to find we were in the lead at half time and even more so at the end after a bruising “music” round! 100% on the “farming” round though, beating the farmers surrounding us Decent prizes too, and our table (though not us) cleaned up in the raffle. Previous one a couple of months back was a charity event at a local school. We only managed second in that one (even with the secret weapon) but the striking thing about it was the sheer effort and imagination that the maths teacher organising it had put in with lots of audio visual rounds and some very cunning use of google translate!
  2. I like the mill too. It’s a bit small for this kind of thing, but then it also needs to fit in the garage. Work has been slowed by me tweaking my back. Frustratingly I wasn’t even doing anything daft at the time, just considering it. Apparently the thought was enough . Old age is a bitch!* It’s resolving but I’m not going to be doing anything very athletic for a couple of days more. Meanwhile I’ve measured the runout on the pilot bearing bore and on the flywheel itself and there is none. This measured on the spare engine. May repeat on the car when some semblance of flexibility (personal) returns. There was “some” axial runout on the old clutch diaphragm. Hard to measure exactly but a bit over 1mm. Maybe interestingly, the pilot bearing felt very notchy while still in the flywheel but feels perfect when removed. It wasn’t making any noise, so perhaps it was hurt in the dismantling process. However, it may also be a bit tight in the flywheel for a standard bearing and all the grease had gone away, so its replacement is a C3 high temperature variant. 6201-2RSH/C3GJN I’ve also compared the release characteristics of the old and new clutch covers. Using the mill bed as a lift-table vs the spindle and measuring displacement with a DTI, so pretty controlled and precise. With the original, but not very worn friction plate, the new Sachs cover starts releasing at 3.5mm and is fully free by 4mm. When I’ve previously measured used B &B covers, they typically need 5.5 - 6mm. The old QY one however needs more like 8 -10mm and is releasing unevenly (the spring is clearly weaker on one side) so it’s harder to judge the release point. This is fairly clearly a major cause of the “long biting point” effect and taken together with the snagging spline I think all operational symptoms are explained. The root cause…. Could just be crap parts… or mis-alignment, but I’m not really seeing much mis-alignment. I’m also not sure why there is so much wear to the diaphragm fingers…. I think I’m just going to carefully reassemble and send it! One thing for sure…. Going to need to go back to a 5/8” M/C! *Tame(ish) physio (formerly the house cyclist) says it not age but a lack of core strength and fitness caused by being a couch potato….. Cheek! (sent from my couch)
  3. Excellent. You have the basics mastered Unfortunately my maps aren’t going to be very useful to you as I’ve never used TPS/Alpha N as primary control and the maps from that strategy look substantially different from their MAP or ITB based counterparts. Tuning my spare MS1 ECU in this way is on my “one day” list …… If your car is road legal your options are to take it to a dyno or to try to tune it on the road. For the latter, you need either the ability to data log or preferably IMO, a trusted accomplice to manually change the VE while you drive (or vice versa). Initially these road runs will be just low speed around the block while you build a feel for how the tuning process works and what the engine wants. At low rpm, small throttle openings you should aim for mid 13s to mid 14s AFR. Go too lean and it gets jerky and hitchy, too rich and it’s flat. Tuning on the road by logging is a long process and will burn a lot of fuel and time. Tuning with a competent helper (or even just a driver who does what they are told and has some mechanical feel) speeds the process a lot. Having the wideband is a massive benefit. My initial tuning of my Vitesse on the road was done by solo logging with a narrow band (many sessions!) So, it can be done this way, though I don’t especially recommend it. Then a few sessions with a good mate who knew the car well was invaluable for dialling in the high end. I did eventually go to a decent local rolling road where the operator “drove” the car and I drove the laptop - we were done in 30 minutes, though that was partly because I’d got 95% there the hard way! These days I “cheat” and use the Tuner Studio “autotune” function, which is a very powerful tool. However, you don’t appear to have anything like that available. I’m assuming that this is also a completely fresh engine so you also need to be mindful of its break-in needs at the same time - which is a little scary.
  4. Not sure my Glaswegian is good enough…..
  5. Well, I have various maps but for Megasquirt. In fact, the ECU possibly matters less than the control philosophy being used. What are you using as your primary load signal? I’m assuming either TPS (alpha N) or a blend of TPS and MAP (manifold pressure), sometimes called ITB mode. This very much affects the look of the map. Do you have a wideband fitted? Also , before you do any serious tuning, do check the throttle balance between and adjust for matching flows. Then re-zero the TPS. Nothing will work right without this.
  6. Complete or Finished? No dictionary has ever been able to satisfactorily define the difference between "complete" and "finished." However, during a recent linguistic conference, held in London , England , and attended by some of the best linguists in the world, Samsundar Balgobin, a Guyanese linguist, was the presenter when he was asked to make that very distinction. The question put to him by a colleague in the erudite audience was this: “Some say there is no difference between ‘complete’ and ‘finished.’ Please explain the difference in a way that is easy to understand.” Mr. Balgobin’s response: “When you marry the right woman, you are ‘complete.’ If you marry the wrong woman, you are ‘finished.’ And, if the right one catches you with the wrong one, you are ‘completely finished.’” His answer received a five minute standing ovation. Yes, that is one very learned man...........hehe*_~
  7. Don’t know anything about Emerald specifically but I wouldn’t hesitate to do some tuning of of the cold start/warm up map from the outset. Yes, you’ll likely have to revisit it later, but so what! Better news is that these warm up pretty quick. Edit: Does the Emerald have an auto-tune function? Or work with Tuner Studio?
  8. Not mine. I borrowed it from somewhere. Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery…..
  9. All part of the continuing enshittification of the Septic Isle.
  10. Turn it off and on again….. Flat battery in some radio thermostat? Does the pump run its prime cycle when you turn the ignition on?
  11. They do, but all different heights and obviously been that way for a while as some are more worn that others. Not Chinese. Apparently (acc. To clutch man) QY denotes Quinton Hazel and is all the explanation needed…. Having thought about it a bit harder I realised that the bell can’t have been on my mill as I didn’t have the mill last time it was off. It has now. Just a light lick (<1mm) has all the important areas cleaned. Hopefully now flat and parallel, though unfortunately big bell on small mill meant several changes of set up which is suboptimal, though the match between cuts seemed good. Then went to the not inconsiderable aggro of moving the backplate and flywheel onto my spare engine and fitting the bell to it. The thinking being that there are a couple of short dowels in the bell/gearbox interface put there by Toyota which can be considered reliable. I could then offer the gearbox to this with the spigot engaging 5mm or so before the dowels, so if it will then continue onto the dowels by had without undue force, alignment must be pretty decent. It passes that test. Few other checks to make but getting through it.
  12. Just Rolled In is a fascinating social commentary which shines a light into one of the (many) grotty underbellies of western civilisation and human stupidity. The latter is of course the worlds most abundant “resource”.
  13. Why indeed? And with a similar reliability rep too….
  14. Just MoT the bloody thing….!
  15. Yep. Lowther do drivers a bit differently and they are really rather good at it. I’m quite keen to try some. Fearsome expensive though. High speaker efficiency is of interest due to having a mere 15W/channel available from the little class A amp. On the demo side, in the middles 80s I went to a HiFi show at Lords. KEF had a large demonstration room with every speaker in their range from some bespoke behemoths built for some enthusiast with a country manor, right down to whatever their £80 baby was at the time. Flagship of their “normal” range at the time was their 104.2 and those held their own very well against the bespoke behemoths. I still have a hankering to own a pair but they remain surprisingly expensive, even ones that are in need of full restoration, which is no small task. They also require a lot more than 15W!
  16. Used to have to mess about with a couple of Revox A77 reel to reel decks. Both twin track versions. Use of tape splicing for theatre sound effects with clear sections for auto stop between events. They were unbelievably heavy! Also a pair of huge Tannoy speakers with 18” dual concentric drivers. Superb sounding things and incredibly efficient. Could fill the large hall with sound with a mere 65W input. I’d love a pair of those (or some slightly smaller ones) but even the drivers alone cost more than I usually pay for a car!
  17. Having now seen the published detailed results, I see we missed 8 code boards, which accounts for 2,400 of our 3,814 points! So my timing wasn’t as bad as first thought…. There must have been a hell of a lot of code boards…. And, as post rally table-top review confirms we went the right way (albeit with the occasional diversionary farmyard visit!), the ratbags must have been concealing the boards . Not a game normally played in this series. Even the winners missed three and nobody got all of them, though it seems all boards were seen by someone…. We were the only car to find a couple of them.
  18. How irritating. The law of unintended consequences takes few prisoners…. Still ruminating on the concentricity question. Meanwhile, I have done some measuring of the release mech. The arm has a basic leverage factor of 1.5. Checking of displacement in vs. displacement out shows that this is indeed what you get for the centre 80% of the operating range. Which is where it does operate. So I don’t believe this responsible for the peculiarities displayed over the life of this clutch. Had some useful discussions with a nice man at Precision Clutches in Henstridge. This resulted in them building me a new 215mm friction plate with Toyota spline - in an hour. He wouldn’t be drawn on the reason(s) for the spline damage. I think he reckoned it was crappy material, but was being polite about the competition. Certainly he wasn’t saying it had to be misalignment. The new plate has an OE Toyota centre….
  19. Another 12 Car rally last night. Class win and 4th overall. Top 3 all in expert class. Was a hard one (near expert level clues) and long, made longer by the organisers having to re-route around a landslide. 24mph average was unachievable (by me anyway) though the winners can’t have be far off. They do have a rally prepared Mk1 Escort though! Sooty had another hard night and could do with a wash….
  20. This made me laugh Can definitely relate. As for partner appreciation….. “that’s good dear” is about as effusive as it gets! As I may have remarked before, these are somewhat notorious for drinking like a navvy on shore leave. So whether yours is normal or worse than normal is a little hard to judge! If it’s got those auxiliary cold-start enrichment devices tacked on to the SUs then these have a rep for adding to the problem. If the exhaust smells fuelly and makes your eyes water, look there first. They are fine wafty ride though. I still remember my first encounter with one in the early 80s, aged maybe 13/14, being chauffeured from school to a hospital appointment by an attractive South African lady. They had brought the Jag back with them from SA and it was pristine. And utterly unlike anything I’d ridden in before. And yes, as noted - it’s a fine looking beast.
  21. This is indeed the question. It’s REALLY difficult to accurately measure. I can throw the bell up on the mill to prove the faces are parallel (I’ve done this before iirc). Checking concentricity is much harder. Nope. Fixed bearing. The wear ring on the spring is 1mm wider than the contact ring on the bearing (could just be the footprint changing slightly as the bearing compressed the spring) and there is an unworn lip of 1mm on the inner edge of the spring on 1/4 - 1/3 the circumference. At first glance this screams misalignment. However, having thought about this quite hard (smell the burning fur!), the gearbox being misaligned would surely cause the contact patch to grow, not offset it, whereas the diaphragm spring itself being offset in the clutch will give the effect observed. I could try your DTI suggestion, though I’m not sure quite what it will prove from the single small access point available. Or maybe you have cunning idea? What I do know is that when last assembled (engine out of car) it went together very easily. Also maybe relevant from history This was the third build of the clutch. The first used a B & B cover and 200mm QH plate intended for a Toyota Hiace. That always had lots of “boing” in it as the cushioning springs were too soft and they eventually collapsed. The spline was absolutely fine on that, but all the rivets holding the hub together were loose so it could be argued that any misalignment was accommodated that way. The second was very similar except it was a better quality version of the friction plate. That did more miles and only came apart as part of the engine swap. The spline on this was also fine, but once again, the centre of the disc had gone “baggy” with loose rivets and the springs were pretty squashed. Both of the above used an oilite bush for the spigot. This was looking a bit sad after its second round so I got the flywheel machined to take the OE Toyota ball race. This gives very positive location (Double edged sword?!) and I used this to revisit the general alignment/concentricity question and drilled a couple of the 5/16 clearance holes out to take 3/8 shoulder bolts as dowels as per big saloon.
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