rmorrow

Hi Dan Yes, they're mine. If you want to make me an offer, please pm me....

Going on Ebay if anyone is interested.... Side sills Front bumper and valance

It's the coil that drives the tacho. Good idea, I'll start there.

Hi Paul Not according to my wiring diagram...

Found it! I stripped down the panel light switch and found one of the connectors had burnt through. Manage to solder it and get everything back together (hate having to take the instrument panel off - what a pain getting it all back in place again!) and now I have sidelights and panel illumination But, the fuse that was originally an issue is still blowing - it runs the indicators, the fog lamp, the reversing lamp and the ignition panel light. Everything seems OK just on ignition but once the engine is run for a couple of minutes, the ignition light starts flickering on and then the fuse goes. The reversing lamp hasn't been working - could that possibly be drawing enough current to pop a 35A fuse? The wiring diagram shows that the alternator is connected directly to the ignition panel lamp - is that a more likely culprit?

Trying to figure out why these have suddenly stopped working. I did have one fuse blow that knocked out the indicators and the ignition lamp, but that's been replaced and all the other fuses seem fine. Trying to follow the wiring diagram and I can see that these 2 are on the same circuit, as you would expect. But I'm not sure where to investigate - can anyone offer any ideas? Thanks.

Hi All Back on this again! I got my mechanic friend around and we went through all the regular checks on spark and timing. I've replaced all the plugs and leads and everything seems OK. Then we managed to get a video down the inlet ports to look at the fuelling and it seems that the fuel is dripping into the ports in large puddles rather than the expected mist. Could this prevent starting and what could be the cause? Again, nothing has changed since it started up normally a few weeks ago.

Thanks Jon, I'll try that. It seems odd though that the engine ran fine for a couple of minutes but now I can't get it started. I can't see how the timing could have gone aray.

Sorry guys, just resurrecting this post as I'm still having problems. The fuel pump stops ticking after 5 secs or so and I can smell fuel if I pull a spark plug so I think the fuelling is ok. I've added a secondary earth strap from the starter motor bolt to the battery earth point at the coolant tank mounting. Some of the starter motor wiring was a bit "tired" so I stripped back and replaced some of that. But still no joy. The engine seems to turning over at a reasonable speed on the starter motor and the oil pressure rises ok so I'm not convinced there is a starter motor issue. The voltmeter on the dash does drop to 11v when starting, but is that normal? Any other suggestions? Thanks.

Hello Charles Yes, plenty of ticks from the fuel pump. Don't think there's an issue with fuelling.

Hello All Reading through this thread, trying to decide if my problem is related.... Car hadn't been started for about 6 months (finally got round to replacing the handbrake cables and hoping for an MOT pass!!). To my slight surprise, it started up pretty much first time and ran OK for a couple of minutes. I got out of the car and went round the back to monitor the engine bay - all seemed fine. But after a couple of blips by hand on the throttle, the engine died and I have had not luck getting it restarted. I had a number of tries and eventually decided the battery was probably knackered, which turned out to be true. So brand new battery and now seems to turn over at reasonable speed, but no firing. Pulled a plug out to check for spark - seems OK. Just tried the advice above about grounding by connecting a jump lead from the battery -ve directly to the block. Noticed there were a few sparks as I attached the lead to the starter bolt - is that normal? But, still the same. Can't imagine there's a distributor problem as why would it have started originally? Any ideas? Thanks, Richard.

Hi Neil - I think Peter was directing this at me and I'm still here!! I had a new cable last year and then the car scraped through the MOT, but no such luck this year! I've had the calliper off and the handbrake lever is moving the piston OK and the ratchet mechanism seems fine. I've put it back with the above spring modification and I'm going to bleed the system later today and then see what happens - I'll keep you posted... But I'd still like to know how Roger's mod actually works...

Can someone explain how Roger's fix works? Does it really add any more load than the coil spring that's already on the caliper handbrake lever? I'm struggling to get through an MOT due to zero handbrake force on RHS....

Thanks guys. I got the right hand one off and eventually managed to fit both UJs and now the driveshaft is back on again. So I thought the left hand side should be easy now I know what I'm doing! Wrong! This time, the hub and the taper nut came off without much difficulty, but the shaft refuses to go through the bearing. No amount of mallet work seems to be making a difference. So I was thinking to follow molemot's advice and take the lower suspension off. But struggling here too! The rear nut came off OK (circled red in the picture) but what else do you need to do to get this all apart? There are 2 nuts at the other end - what are they for?

OK, thanks. I did try the rubber mallet, but maybe not enough patience!