Even a small misalignment will ruin input shaft bearings in little time. I would very carefully check the dowels between the back of the engine and the bell-housing. Any slop here could leave the axis of the crank and the axis of the input shaft offset from each other, thus leading to...

>>poor man’s DTI In a way, yes! It would be quite sensitive because the area of the piston is much much larger than the area of the pipe section, so even a small movement of the piston would push the liquid a long way along the tube.

The crown detaching from the top of series petrol engine pistons is not unknown - I've seen one before where the crown just stuck in its TDC position while the lower part of the piston went up and down as per normal as the engine cranked over - that cylinder just gave absolutely no compression...

Steve - the idea is to use the hollowed out glow plug as a connector to allow air to pass from the cylinder, via the pre-combustion chamber, to a clear plastic U tube. Coloured liquid in the U tube would then move in direct reaction to piston motion, and so indicate TDC. It would look a bit...

Give it a bit more thought; remember that the pre-chamber communicates with the main cylinder; if it didn't the fuel and flame could never reach the cylinder.

If you have an old glow plug, you could butcher it, and remove the internal ceramic parts, and glue it to a length of clear washer tubing, and form a U tube. This could then be used instead of the dial gauge on the piston top as a way of approximating the TDC position without taking the...

When you say plenty of fuel - do you mean at the delivery pipe to the carb? There's a fine mesh filter in the carb inlet - it's underneath the housing where the delivery pipe connects to the carb upper body, it can get clogged.

Looking at the long list of work done, perhaps the fault isn't actually in the bell housing. I was thinking that that there might be a torsional vibration coming from a prop shaft. In a low gear, this vibration would be amplified up by the gearing. You've eliminated the front prop. What...

Merry Christmas! Is your suspension standard, or, has the ride height been increased? and so, the propshaft angle increased?

>>one of the most slippery But, you don't want slippery in a rolling element bearing. You want the rollers to roll, not to slip and slide.

That this problem is anything to do with fuel vapour could just be an idee fixe. I haven't seen any evidence of the engine being checked to verify that it is really a fuelling problem - the thread is all surmise. One approach is when the problem manifests itself, to check both the fuel...

Yes,that's exactly what I was thinking as I watched the video. It is at cam / valve speed. It might be worth pressing down on each rocker on the adjuster side with a piece of wood with the engine on tick over - if there is a flat spot,or similar, I would expect to feel it and/or for the noise...

You don't need to rotate backplates or anything like that. The mistake people make is to adjust the brakes UP. DON'T do this. The thing to do is to FULLY back them off. Even better, use a strap to hold the shoes fully back. The problem is that you get air bubbles in the slave cylinders...

Using these figures, I've estimated that the corresponding compression temperatures are just over 500 Kelvin. The self ignition temperature of the diesel spray is about 530K. So, the calculation explains why your engine doesn't start, but, when you help it with something more volatile, you can...

If you look at the rearwards vertical face of the steel bracket which sits between the gear lever pivot and the gearbox, you may find a threaded hole which lines up with the reverse selector. If you have this, you can fit a brake lamp switch, 575166 in there, and, once adjusted, the switch is...

Yes, this was my point about thinking which one you wanted to change. There are pros and cons each way. Putting a 3.54 in the rear axle will give higher cruising speed, but poorer hill climbing ability, but may allow tyres with a smaller rolling radius to be used which might allow greater...

I don't think you need to try it - I was thinking about the issue more generally. I would say that you have already demonstrated that you have mis-matched final drive ratios. I would say that you need to begin thinking about which diff you want to / can reasonably change.

Yes, it sounds like there's a problem there. Chris's post above suggests a very simple and direct way to check for mis-matched axle ratios. With 4 wheel drive selected, and the front and rear wheels of only one side of the car lifted (two wheels lifted; two on the ground) , turning the rear...

>>as-new length is less than that of the current sleeve. Yes, that doesn't sound right. Are you sure the new crush tube is the right part? I have no idea what the length of the new crush tube should be. As long as it crushes, it's not critical. However, you can check to see if the crush...

>>Is that what you said? Not quite. The crush tube doesn't set any distance - it just crushes. As it crushes, it provides a reaction force - giving the pinion nut something to tighten against. That's all it does. Without the crush tube being fitted at all, you could still set the bearing...