JLImmelman wrote:

My concern is that the quality of the bolts supplied isn't consistent, so applying the same torque to the bolts might make a weaker bolt stretch more than the others and possibly go into the plastic deformation stretch range instead of remaining in the elastic range as it should. This would cause the gasket to not be clamped sufficiently in the area around the bolt causing symptoms consistent with mine (I hope!).

Should I be looking at checking and setting the tappet pre-load (http://www.v8engines.com/engine-4.htm#preload) while I wait for the head studs to arrive? Am I correct in saying I'd need to remove and bleed down the lifters before doing this?
Would a 10thou skim from standard be enough to push the tapped pre-load out of spec, or is this something worth doing anyway?

That is my concern with stretch bolts. The ones that were originally fitted 20 odd years ago would have been made to a specific specification but you've no way of knowing if the ones available these days are to the exact same spec. While the stud kit is not cheap, using them, along with top hat liners will give you a much stronger engine.

10 thou shouldn't take the preload out of limits but it's worth checking anyway. There's a much easier way of checking it here http://www.v8developments.co.uk/technical/valve_train/index.shtml.

Yes, a full cassette that is known to be working is much easier. Also means you have to drop the headlining to fit it so you can re-trim it to deal with the drooping cloth while it is out.

Yes, the centre of the motor has a slot in it and when the car was new it was supplied with a Tee bar to wind it back and forth but a large flat screwdriver works just as well. The usual problem is that the system goes stiff and one of the many small cast levers breaks. You can buy a set of replacements from a seller on eBay but they are 3D printed plastic, require an awful lot of fettling to get them to fit together and move smoothly and aren't as strong as the originals. Not heard of anyone that has managed to get them to work for more than a couple of times before they break.

If the sunroof is there but doesn't work, after the battery has been off you'll get a sunroof not set message on the dash and, as it doesn't work, you can't reset it. If you aren't getting that message, then it is quite possible the BeCM has been told the sunroof isn't fitted to stop the message. In that case it isn't going to work even if it is in perfect working condition.

Yeah, bit of a trek for you......

Give Dave at East Coast 4x4 a call on 07527 953807. I spent about 3 days trying to get one of the eBay kits to run smoothly and after I had it broke the second time I opened it so I got a complete working cassette from him for the Ascot. I think it was £80 but I had to go and collect it from near Beccles in Suffolk so may not be that convenient.

C'mon, I never talked you into it, just suggested you'd find a much better class of person on here and most of us are based in the UK too. I had a TD5 Disco as a company car for a while and, while it wasn't great, it was a lot better than the 200TDi that it replaced.....

Copart is where the insurance write offs go, so lots of damaged but repairable cars on there and some, such as stolen and recovered where the insurance company have already paid out to the owner, that have little or no damage at all. Others are main dealer trade ins and cars submitted by private sellers. Prices have gone up in the last few years as the damaged ones are bought by the transporter load and taken to Poland and Lithuania to be either stripped and sold off as spares or repaired and bought back. Anything with a VW or Peugeot/Citroen diesel engine in it gets snapped up for more than you would think it is worth. I sold an old Citroen C5 diesel for a mate and it was bought by a Lithuanian who told me that he could sell the alternator and starter for 100 Euros each, 500 Euros for the engine, another 250 for the gearbox and so on. Considering he bought the whole car in a state where he could drive it to Lithuania for £500, he was going to make a fortune on it.

and as cylinder 2 is the front right, that would allow pressure into the water passage so it looks like your diagnosis is correct.

Elring are fine and I've used ARP studs in the past rather than the stretch bolts. I was advised by V8 Developments to torque them to 80-85 Nm, which works out at just under 65 ft/lbs which I'm more used to. Going on other alloy engines this seemed about right so I do them in three stages, to 35 ft/lbs (45 Nm), then 50 ft/lbs (68 Nm), then finally to 65 ft/lbs (88 Nm).

You may find that it wasn't the bolt stretching but the thread starting to pull out of the block. If the thread has pulled out of the block, or at least it has been weakened, you may not be able to torque it properly and the block will need to be helicoiled. On one engine that had been seriously overheated, I had to do all three of the upper middle ones (the long ones). I used a couple of the ARP studs as a standoff to hold an old head gasket 3 or 4 inches above the block face, that gave me a guide to drill and tap the block so it was perpendicular to the face. Then screwed 2.5x diameter helicoils in. I had to buy a pack of 10 helicoils so still have a few spare if you can't get hold of them

The best one I've seen was a customised Harley Davidson we imported. It had been customised to the point where it had no front brake and, as we all should know, it is the front brakes that do the stopping. At anything over walking pace, if you applied the brakes, all that happened was weight transfer shifted the mass to the, unbraked, front wheel while allowing the rear wheel to lock up so you carried on at exactly the same speed as you had been travelling at. It was fully road registered and legal to use in the US but had to be re-engineered to incorporate a front disc brake to get it road legal here. Having imported a few as container fillers and ridden them, I don't like Harleys anyway, but that thing was a deathtrap.

I'm not knocking it but I've imported 30-40 vehicles from the US and found things like track rod ends that have so much slack the car could barely be kept in a straight line (and one that was so bad the track rod actually fell off!). There's been threads on the other side where people have said that they've lost all their brake fluid because one of the short steel pipes at the back has rusted through. These are things that the MoT test would pick up on before they became dangerous. That's what it is, it's a safety test. The object of it is to make sure the vehicle isn't a danger to the driver or anyone else. Originally it was almost solely brakes, lights and steering but other things have been added over the years so seatbelts (driver safety in event of an accident) and body/chassis structure were added (Will it fall apart on you? Will the jagged edges of rusted bodywork rip a pedestrian apart when you hit them?) and exhaust (will it gas you while you are driving along).

I agree that there are some testers that seem to use it as some sort of power trip or will try to make the rules up as they go along if they don't like the look of you, but mainly it's a pretty good indicator of the state of a car and how well it has been looked after. You can also check the MoT history online for a car so you can see what it has needed in the past. If a car goes in and has a number of advisories (things that it will still pass the test but will need attention soon) and you see the same advisories the following year, you know the owner doesn't really care about it.

Ours is much more than that, it is a safety check and includes almost all of the vehicle. The full testers manual is https://www.gov.uk/guidance/mot-inspection-manual-for-private-passenger-and-light-commercial-vehicles which shows how to test and what is a pass, fail or advisory. Although emissions are part of it, they aren't done through OBD but by putting a probe up the exhaust and measuring the emissions. It can be a bit of a pain but it at least means that you are told about rusted brake pipes or fuel lines before they start to leak and anything else that you may not have noticed but could be dangerous.

How did you get round the reversing lights being on when they shouldn't problem?

I don't know, as soon as the live auction started you can't see it online. I didn't bother going as standing around in the rain in Wisbech didn't really appeal.....

Didn't reach the reserve so not sold and will be in next weeks auction.

Yes, they keep changing the name, Ultimate, Platinum and I think you are right, the last ones I bought were Laser. Yes, mH4 for dip/main and H1 for main (I've still got standard Halogens in there, main is so good anyway, although it does look a bit odd with the different colour light from the two). I've used 100W bulbs in the past in other cars but they were 100/55W so no different on dip, just higher wattage on main which is good anyway.

The way they work is that they need to show a certain number of fails otherwise it looks like they are not doing the test properly. My tester got an inspection and was asked why he never failed anything for blown light bulbs. He told the inspector that he just fitted a new bulb and passed the car. He was told what he should do is fail it, fit a new bulb then retest so the percentage of fails accurately reflects the number of cars running around with blown light bulbs.

Government site takes 2 or 3 days to update so it won't show the pass (and fail and subsequent pass) for a couple of days.

As I regularly drive through the night on the Continent where there's no streetlights (and on a cloudy night with no moon it can be completely black), the lights were great on main beam but when dipped I may as well have switched them off! As much of my long distance driving is done on the wrong side of the road, rather than a stick on mask or bit of tape, I've painted out my lights so I've got a flat dip too. I tried the Osram bulbs and that made a huge difference and using the front fogs as well gives a good spread of light and doesn't appear to dazzle anyone coming the other way (nobody has ever flashed me anyway). I had one of the Osrams blow so put a standard one in until a replacement arrived. Driving into my driveway, I've got a window directly in front of me so could see the reflection of the lights. The Osram side was a bright blueish white while the standard 55/60W bulb in the other side looked a dirty brown colour in comparison.

My missus used to work on the same theory. She had a Merc C180 auto with the foot operated parking brake. I took it in for MoT and it did virtually nothing so failed. Got back home and told her that it had failed on handbrake, "But it hasn't got one?" was the reply. Had to take her outside and show her where it was. She'd never used it once in the time she'd owned it as that is what P is for surely?

Usual problem is the tabs at the bottom break off. It would be reasonably simple to take a fibreglass mould off one but I'll not sure what you'd use to replicate them. Fibreglass would be too thick.

StrangeRover wrote:

Yanking it on while moving wouldn't do the UJ's much good i'd of thought!

That's why it's done at walking pace. It'll put less strain on the UJ's than me towing 3.5 tonnes up the side of a mountain......