The crush tube doesn't set the bearing preload. All the crush tube does is to provide a near constant resistance force for the pinion nut to tighten against. If there were no crush tube, the force between the pinion nut and flange / washer would be just equal and opposite to the relatively...

Be careful not to overllok that the differential gears are also involved. One way to see this is to split the motion into two parts. Imagine both wheels are off the ground and free. Turn the prop in the normal direction by 4.7 (or whatever the final drive reduction ratio is) turns. Both...

>>The rear must grab first, to keep you straight This is dangerous advice. Rear axle locking must be avoided at all costs - so, the braking on the rear axle must, even in the worst case conditions, be reduced to make sure that the front axle locks first. Rear axle locking will result in a...

On Ebay item 401733001276, you'll see a picture showing how the oil cap should look. The only part number I know is the leaf spring; it's 6419 I did buy a new O ring for mine ages ago, but, I haven't been able to find the invoice to find the part number

It looks like this is an ex-military gearbox, and what you have in the picture is actually the removable filler cap, and is not a breather, but; - it's upside down - it's missing a large chunky O ring seal - it's missing the thin leaf spring which holds the cap in place The breather is...

A possibility for the poor running problem is that perhaps the springs in the base of the distributor are broken or missing altogether. If the timing were set by strobe light, this would be with the distributor at full advance owing to the lack of the springs. From there, there would be no...

The washer switch is the green/black box at the back of the switch.

To change the bearing at the top of the column, you need to take the wheel, indicator switch and ignition switch off, so the top of the column is clear of attachments, then, you can loosen the clamp bolt on the top of the steering box, and slide the outer column and bearing off. So, you can...

OM606 engines are very good engines, BUT, they are engineered for car use,and as Rob says, no good off-road. So,the question you need to ask is; do you want to use car on-road, or, off-road? The difference is (largely) the shape of the torque curve. For good off-road (and commercial) use, an...

I've never understood what people have against these carbs. Anyway,back to theoriginal problem. Could it be the flexy air pipe collapsing internally? When it starts bogging down,try taking the flexy off and see if it makes any difference to the running. It costs nothing to do,and needs no...

Remove and clean out the idle jet. It's on the side of the carburettor - you don't need to take the lid off. When you've done this, the idle mixture will be very rich, so, be ready to screw the idle mixture screw back in a bit.

>>I've pressed the tyre down onto the inner edge .... There's no need to go mad with this - if the tyre is touching the rim all the way round,it will seal enough to begin with. Sometimes a ratchet strap around the crown of the tread can open the beads up a bit,and help them to touch the rim...

One quick way to find the definitive answer is to spray some WD40 down into the air corrector jet,using the little red tube to direct the spray. As you're spraying watch the chokes - WD40 will come out of one of the auxiliary venturis.

I use a short length of 3/16 brake pipe. One end fits reasonably well into the threaded hole in the top of the relay, the other end connects to a length of flexible tube which connects to my oil can. By loosening one of the other bolts in the top, I can pump oil in through one bolt, and the...

Your MOT tester has taken the idle mixture from one extreme to the other. 5% CO is too rich It's better to set the CO between 2.5% and 3% Your mixture is currently much too weak - which is why you need some choke to richen it up a bit. A friendly MOT station will let you check your mixture using...

It's actually better to do the opposite of this. Although it sounds odd, the problem stopping the front brakes on 109s being bled is a pocket of air behind the extended pistons in the wheel cylinders. If you adjust the brakes fully off, this pushes the pistons back in the wheel cylinders, and...

It's not unknown for new thermostats to stick. Try it in a pan of boiling water to see if it opens.

I struggled with my 109 too. To get the standard brakes to bleed, I took both front drums off, backed the adjusters fully OFF, and then tied ratchet straps round the shoes pulling them tightly in, fully pushing the wheel cylinder pistons back into their bores. Then a couple of pumps of the...

The outer column is fine - the broken part you can see is the outer race of the bearing. The ball bearings themselves are long gone. My bearing had failed and looked exactly like this photo; there was no damage to the steering column tube.

You can do the bearing by releasing the steering column tube from the clamp bolt in the top of the steering box. With ignition switch and stalks removed, the column clamp on the bulkhead released, the outer column slides out, bringing the bearing with it, and leaving the inner column...