GT6 version . 

Hello            Your Bosch valve must be different to the one I have as the curved shutter would go past the close position and let air in? That was not a problem as I just told the system to hold it in the closed position but then I found it is not a good fit and air went around the side of it? I thought perhaps it was a worn valve so I found another one cheap but that was exactly the same so that's why I went to the Ford one as it shuts off against a seating if you want or normally it is just hovering off the seat just enough to keep the tick over about right(it does tend to hunt a bit and I have spent hours messing with fuel tables?) I think I aim to lean on tick over? Roger

That’s had plenty of care lavished on it. Don’t love every detail. Not sure about the chrome headlight surrounds and the Corvette style bonnet “vents” is a firm no. Would be interesting to know if it’s special mechanically. This is the one I was thinking of I think, though not the pic of it that usually comes up

Hi Rick, if you press the report button and explain what is going on does anything good happen.   Roger

Hi David just to cheer you up. My good friend Hugh bought a hoiuse in Perivale W. London in the mid 70's When he and his wife to be viewed0 the house all appeared very nice. When they moved in the first thing they found was that the scum that moved out took every single light bulb with him. Then when he went into the bath room it still looked very very nice, with its avacado suite When he went into the adjoining bedroom he found out how/why the bath room cabinet was so deep - huge hole in the bedroom wall - not even covered with a tissue of wallpaper Some folk need shooting - with a blunt spoon   Roger   

I had a play with the Bosch/volvo valve Indeed, it didn't shut completely, and there is a small brass adjusting screw with a head that defied my eyesite. I spent afew minites grinding the body around the screw so I could get pliers on it (no allen key or star/torx fitted). It was not moving, so a litle heat from my propane torch was applied, and it move. Repeated 4 times (I didn't want to heat the whole thing) and got the adjster right out. Green threadlock was removed with a wire brush. And it screwed in/out easily. Found a position where it totally shuts. Welded a 1" bit of 20mm water pipe to teh prenum, then drilled and tapped the plenum M6. Fitted a mig tip (which I drilled out to 3mm) for the MAP sensor pipe. More of a faff was the throttle linkage. I acquired a KA throttle body purely for the "snail" linkage. The required the ST throtle shaft to be machined town to 6mm, then flats each side. Still some movement, so a rollpin, and a bit of epoxy got that sorted. Then a simple matter of attaching a bracket for the cable, not as tidy as I would have liked but function trumps form here. Pics to follow.

A minor update: Managed to finish rebuilding the under window wall. Definitely could do it better if I did it again, but it's relatively straight and true and it won't matter once its plastered. Done a few other things, mostly reinstating the garden and plumbing nothing worth photographing. We also, after a year of living in the house, discovered the previous people plasterboarded over half of the bathroom window. Not sure how that escaped my attention... Decided I want to speed things up a bit, and if I sort out the beam myself it's going to take me at least a month of weekends, so I've been preparing things for the builder who is meant to start next week. New beam will be 203x102 which should look a lot neater. Discovered this while I was sorting out the dodgy chased in cables, yes they literally packed an asbestos lined air vent with old polystyrene packaging and then rendered and plastered over it. I think this is a more ancient bodge, probably from the 1980s. For the second below it they at least splashed out on real bricks. I've removed all the asbestos as I'm guessing the builder would rather not deal with it. I thought the air bricks were just for the cavity, by apparently no, this is how they did things in the 70's for kitchens. Wall looks very very weak, and the other side is even more scary now it doesn't have plaster or a stud wall holding it together. The amount of bad infill in the walls is really scary, decades of bodges I guess.

Yes you can block it off that way. For the coolant refilling of the system, as the header tank is connected to the lowest point in bottom hose there isn’t the likelihood of trapping air, but it is still prudent to follow the workshop guidance to set the heater to hot and, after filling, run the engine for a minute or so with the header tank cap off. thanks Ian

Oh yes.  My one came with Dunlop radials. It shared daily driver duties with my Mk2 Spit but I would say much of rampant rubber loss was down to my hooligan behaviour.  At the time I worked at the ordnance factory a blanket site 20mph limit but with literally hundreds of acres of unused roads, tracks and woodland. Lunchtimes, and just getting from place to place usually involved detours to the quieter parts. That and the general nonsense round town. The fabulous thing about the Mini was that all this could be done at 20-30 mph. 

Oh joy. Not short of work there. Immediate and slightly longer term. I take it the cambelt change is a dismantle the front of the car and scaffold pole on the pulley bolt job? The rampant lacquer peel may have a bearing on perusal of replacements. Wummin tend to be less keen on the rat-rod look than blokes I fear. Trouble nowadays is the paucity of half decent options out there. Bon chance mate!