zoltan

We've been taking the wheels off of ours completely as well as chaining it to a suitable girder. Not fool proof but another level of aggro.

Following on with the stethoscope suggestion for listening for nasty noises, we always use a long screw driver as a listening device when running the dyno if something doesn't sound right. Especially good for tappets. Place it perpendicular to the surface and press your ear onto the handle. It is surprising how well you can hear various good and bad noises that way and it does isolate out any surrounding noises from the area you want to listen to

Dump the oil out through a fine paint filter/bit of clean rag/kitchen towel etc and have a fish around in the debris for gear teeth, needle rollers, bits of bearing cage etc. Poke a small magnet on a stick in the casing and have a fish around. If you are lucky there will be a few filings and not a lot else.

Have you had a look at the transfer box oil level or changed the oil?

Try Withams, www.mod-sales.com. They have had a few in the auctions that look decidedly like donor vehicles

Google is your friend

Has it just catastrophically failed?

Silicon fluid was developed for the US military who wanted to park vehicles up in store for many years without the fluid deteriorating supposedly It is completely useless stuff which froths badly, compresses much more than glycol based fluid and doesn't mix with glycol based fluid. As Adam says the water miscibility issue is also a problem for performance use.

"Almost 200 years ago, hay carts passed down Chertpit Lane. So it must now be opened up to Land Rovers and Harley-Davidsons." Don't think Woy has been near too many gween lanes has he?

Don't bother with cross drilled discs, it is a matter of when rather than if they will crack from heat around the drillings. Grooved discs have nearly the same advantage of degassing pads and maintaining a good pad/disc surface but the risk of cracking is greatly reduced. I would also avoid E** pads in preference for Mintex or Ferodo. E** pads have too much variation in friction level between batches and even pads in a box. If we get customers at work with issues with the car pulling to one side or vibration under braking, more often than not it is these budget pads at fault. It is something to do with the way they are pressed. As Aragorn says, Mintex M1144 is a good compound as would be Ferodo DS2500. Both have good cold friction and will work well at disc temperatures up to 600 degrees C Castrol SRF is a hugely expensive option for a high temperature brake fluid. To really get the best out of it it needs to be changed at an unacceptably short period of usage as it is very hygroscopic. At £38 per 500ml there are cheaper options available like Motul 600 or Millers race fluid with similar performance. Race fluids only retain their advantages when changed regularly. I presume these are working under standard rims so bigger diameter and wider discs are not an option?

Maybe a diversionary tactic. They were being shipped onto Buenos Aires

Following the input shaft and spigot diameter discussion, anyone have a dimension for the spigot diameter for an R380 V8 input shaft? Ive bought a spigot bush p/n 614263 which has what is I assume a pilot bore of about 13mm which is to go in a 3.5 EFi auto V8 which is bushless ATM

If your cup is thicker is not your spider then smaller diameter assuming the needles are the same size? Which part fails?

All to often now but good luck on getting it back. Any pictures?

Thanks, most interesting. I dread to think what some of those unobtanium steels cost, I've just ordered a variety of sizes in S156 and that is horrific enough. For example: 20 pieces S156 cut from 63.5mm dia bar to 159mm long £23.50/ea plus vat

If you know what thread you need Merlin will make them up with swaged Goodridge ends on braided hose

It was quite a while since I did mine, I can't remember if you could pull the whole mainshaft and selector assembly out without disturbing that seal sleeve thingy. Certainly the input shaft wouldn't come out the front of the casing

The crank tail will be good and hard but a CBN tipped boring bar would probably work

I have been there, mine was a 300 TDi short stick from a Disco. I replaced the baulk rings and mainshaft whilst mine was apart as the mainshaft had spline wear on the t box end. Ashcrofts supplied the input shaft for mine as well as the gearchange parts and the bell housing. Doing a full strip and rebuild at least let me know all the internals were in good nick. If you are simply replacing the input shaft you won't have the same aggro I had pulling the seal sleeve off of the transfer end of the mainshaft. The R380 manual is kicking about on the net as a PDF download

We have shafts and gears hardened and ask for 0.025/0.035" case depth on EN36 steel. Grinding 23mm to 19mm sounds like quite a reduction and probably through the hardening but then again what do I know?

I found Des Hammil's Power Tuning the Rover V8 as a Google book. That has quite a good summary of the various V8 incarnations in at the front http://books.google.com/books?id=gmSavy1RPxEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=How+to+Power+Tune+Rover+V8+engines&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

This is the one big PITA with a Mac and the only reason why it might have to be compromised by loading Windoze

I wonder how much stuff Snap On would be selling if it were not for the revolving credit. The quality has certainly dropped on so much of their stuff over the last 10-15 years. Used to be that Blue Point was the budget range and the Snap On was a cut above, these days you'd be hard pressed to tell *recently bought the Snap on 3/8 gun on offer **with no great expectations from it

The HP pump is working against the pressure regulator, it shouldn't need any restrictor in the return line. True, with a swirl pot the LP lift pump must have a restrictor but the HP circuit has one in the form of the pressure regulator

Weller wheels made us some 13x10" steel wheels for a Mini ages ago. Very reasonable in price too. No bands or mucking about. Might be worth the call