Little Red, my 1500 EFI Herald convertible.

[zetecspit]

42 minutes ago, mpbarrett said:

Any suggestions for a different better alternator?

mike

Denso 40A baby alternator. They seem indestructable. Just fitted on to my vitesse, just drilled the alternator mount out to 10mm, made a short spacer and bobs your uncle. Needed a spacer for the adjuster, and being honest the old dynamo adjusting bracket wasn't suitable, found another that was and had to use a spacer ofor that too. I think the belt I used is a 1025, so similar to spitfire size. 

[Escadrille Ecosse]

Just take care from where you buy.

For example sold as a Kubota spare they are around £80 new. As a 'lightweight' alternator with sproting ambitions then they'll try and gouge you twice that!

[rogerguzzi]

Hello

             I have run proper Kubuto Denso ones for about 7 years and they are great and plenty of power for you fuel pump and all the other stuff and I reasoned I can get one anywhere when touring Spain etc as they fit them to the little garden type tractors etc(so you may wait for a day!) 

But as said make sure its a genuine one!

There was a link on here not long ago for them I bought a spare (and put it on Spitty to test a 1000 miles ago and still just the same!)

Roger

ps proper old Lucas were ok but they are all old and the Modern C**p is not worth the money unless you do about 500 miles a year then they may last 2 to 3 years!!!!!

[mpbarrett]

after our trip round Scotland I have noticed a knock on drive take up from the  nearside rear end.
Had a look yesterday and the nuts and bolts holding the drive shaft to the diff were loose, finger tight. The other side were still very tight. So have tightened them up and ordered a new set of nylon nuts and bolts in case the bolts  are damaged and to fit new nyloc nuts.

The last time I did anything to the rear end was before the 2024 10CR when I changed the diff.

Since then it has done 2 10CR's, one trip around Wales and finally a trip around the NC500, probably in total over 6000 miles, and yet the noise only started after visiting Scotland!

Wonder what it is about Scotland roads than can loosen drive shaft bolts...  

mike

[egret]

They are difficult buggers to torque up.  The right spanners and thick gloves (to help with my soft office worker hands) are my solution.  They are probably a good candidate for marker paint to allow for easy visual inspection, but I've not got around to doing that myself.

[JumpingFrog]

19 minutes ago, mpbarrett said:

after our trip round Scotland I have noticed a knock on drive take up from the  nearside rear end.
Had a look yesterday and the nuts and bolts holding the drive shaft to the diff were loose, finger tight. The other side were still very tight. So have tightened them up and ordered a new set of nylon nuts and bolts in case the bolts  are damaged and to fit new nyloc nuts.

My 13/60 also likes to loosen driveshaft bolts (or did when it was on the road), but it still has 5/16 ones. In my experience the 3/8 ones come loose far less frequently, since you have a 3.63 diff, I'm guessing you're already upgraded to 3/8? FWIW, a good source of decent bolts and nylocs are Land Rover suppliers, part NZ606041L or 509046. Usually better quality (high tensile) than generic bolts.

4 minutes ago, egret said:

They are difficult buggers to torque up.  The right spanners and thick gloves (to help with my soft office worker hands) are my solution.  They are probably a good candidate for marker paint to allow for easy visual inspection, but I've not got around to doing that myself.

+1 , something unbelievably painful about doing them as you're working with your arms raised - the blood circulation isn't ideal. What do you mean by right spanners? I'm yet to find a ring spanner that fits so always done them with open ended ones, and it hurts if you slip.

[yorkshire_spam]

51 minutes ago, JumpingFrog said:

+1 , something unbelievably painful about doing them as you're working with your arms raised - the blood circulation isn't ideal. What do you mean by right spanners? I'm yet to find a ring spanner that fits so always done them with open ended ones, and it hurts if you slip.

On Land Rovers I found this tremendously useful, but too big for smaller stuff like Triumphs (but it is SUPERB for Triumph manifold nuts)

I have half a memory of at one time having a VERY thin walled ring spanner that would fit one of the prop/driveshaft bolts/nuts on the Spitfire, but either I hallucinated it or I've lost that spanner years ago. 

 

[RedRooster]

Probably similar to the thin walled snapon one I use. If you want a part number I'll go rake it out. 

[mpbarrett]

Today I visited the model engineering show in St Albans.
A great contrast to most engineering shows as this focused on kids, with lots of activities and things to do and try. Lots of families having fun, nice change from the usual crowd of old grumpy blokes in anoraks.... If you want kids to enjoy or show interest in engineering this is the way to do it. Excellent show.
There was a display from a guy with model rockets and he did a demo launching one of them in the sports field. One of the girls watching it said "Dad thats the best thing I have  ever seen..." OK she was only about 6 or 7, plenty of time for better thrills, but her enthusiasm was great!
Mike 

[mpbarrett]

spent the last couple of days trying to stop my leaky gearbox leaving an oil trail around East Anglia.

First job is taking the cover off, not too bad in a Herald, much easier than a GT6 or Spitfire!

The gearbox in the car is a standard  3 rail with J type OD. I brought it a couple of years ago to replace the 3 rail with GT6 ratios that that Tony Lindsey built for me. Thats a  nice box, good sync and quiet, but with a 3.63 diff first gear is too high for the Herald. The long term plan is to find a Marina gear set to put into it, Tony Lindsey has  a set but its difficult to get him to commit to doing the rebuild  for me....

So the box currently in the car is a standard Spitfire 3 rail box. It is lovely, very quiet, good sync and OD. I had to swap out the solenoid as it was sticking.  No idea of its history but was told it had been rebuilt and was going into midget based special but that never happened. I think it had not been used for a some time.
I thought that the oil was coming from the drain plug but it was mostly leaking out of the OD filter cover, the bolts on the cover were finger tight and the oil coming out by the gasket. Plus some from the drain plug and from any sealed face.

I managed to remove the prop shaft and jack the gearbox up higher enough to remove the plate and replace the gasket. As I was doing in blind, couldn't see the mating surface, I have added a thin smear of sealant on the edge of the  gasket, don't like using sealant but just wanted to stop the oil coming out!

I went round the box and managed to do most of the nuts up by a 1/4 turn which might stop some of the oil weeping out of the joints... Replaced the drain plug with a new one that seemed to fit well but added some thread sealant to stop any leaks.

Nothing nasty in the old oil, no metal bits but a  lots of black 'dust' which I guess is from the OD bands. it has some fairly hard driving, with trips around Wales, Scotland and the last 10CR.

Just need to take it for a drive and get it hot and see if it reduced the leaks...

gearbox jacked up to get access to the OD filter cover.

very wet old gasket

mucky oil, OD bands debris? But no metals bits 

[mpbarrett]

Went shopping in the Herald, parked in Tesco and when i came back it had a friend behind it. Interesting difference in the technology in the 2 cars! From this angle you don't appreciate the difference in size.....
Got the shopping and went for an enjoyable drive to Burwell and round to Wicken and home.

[mpbarrett]

when I changed the gearbox in the Herald for the untested 3 rail J type OD box, it worked fine apart from the OD sticking so as I was about to go on a trip took  the solenoid out of the original good box and fitted it to the box in the car and it worked perfectly.
Move forward a year and I thought its time to clean and fit new O rings to the original solenoid, so between playing the host with our Christmas guests I had  a short time in the garage. Looking at the faulty  solenoid I realised its missing the circlip from the front! So was it never fitted or is in in the gearbox....