Thanks that's really helpful 👍 Hopefully if I'm getting a custom flywheel made I can specify the spigot bearing to be spaced backwards enough to engage with the input shaft properly. Good to know that the slave cylinder might fit. It looks spot on in the wrong place, but you never can quite tell until it's in the car.

God's Teeth - literally.  It cut through TWO buildings! An effect to be truly feared. John

Bonus Phillipa Forrester  Jet fire, bloody scary, dangerous thing, just short of a BLEVE (boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion). Very relevant to my old BP job on the LPG plant. Took me a while to find it but this is the extract from the devastation caused by the Hickson & Welch jet fire https://www.icheme.org/media/13704/the-fire-at-hickson-and-welch-ltd.pdf The middle portion of the control block no longer exists, and look at the metal fence.

Skodog is mostly behaving and has had quite a few miles added.  Likes: - It’s quite quiet and smooth and civilised. - Stereo is quite good, though I still have to add the Bluetooth box. - 60mpg - Engine is ridiculously punchy for a 1.6. Also, it will hold 75 up Telegraph hill on the A380 two-up and has poke in reserve. That is something Sooty 1 can’t match. Dislikes: -interior finish/materials falls well short of the A6. - HVAC system is a bit crap, especially regarding demisting or lack of. Takes AGES to warm up.  The latter is probably the downside of DI diesel efficiency - the rest…. Not sure if feature or fault. The cabin filter is now new and no much better. - By design the wipers cannot be lifted more than a few mm off the screen before the arms clash with the bonnet. Makes scraping ice more awkward. And now a strange fault. I have long suspected that the traction control doesn’t work. And last night I had to stop in a big hurry which proved that the ABS doesn’t either. At all. And yet the warning lights come on/go out normally on start-up, so one might reasonably assume no fault….. No codes either. Odd! It certainly stops though…

Thank you, Nick!     "The amazing part was the Triumph Vitesse on the front row of the grid although it was being driven by the very talented Philippe Vermast who normally drives a super-rapid Lotus Elan 26R in British HTGT" I've been to Spa - wonderful circuit.    Maybe again this year, especially if M.Vermast is there.  Although I very much doubt if I would be alongside him on the grid! John

Plastic parts have a finite life. Often shorter than what should be the life of the car…. And yeah…. I’m familiar with the “NLA” problem. That’s pretty much everything on a C4 Audi now - in the UK at least. 

Car and driver mentioned here www.wolfitt.com/2025.htm Scroll down to the Spa report in August.

Too right! Had a bit of that Christmas night. Followed by the inevitable attempts to build to maximum height  with only the contents of one Jenga set.

Thanks John, that is the one (and with bonus Philippa Forrester too). Think it was his masters project. As far as I know it was never put into production.

Breaking / Splitting plastic parts is my main pita. Especially with the older cars. Our youngest car is 21. Problem is getting these plastic bastaxxds. For our Suzuki Vitara and the Hyundai Getz „… not longer available“ , sorry sir.    Happy New Year Martin