Hi, friends
A liitle story of the miniature gremlin. I've just spent a very happy week
doing a top-end overhaul on a chum's Mk3 Spitfire. It's only done just over
16000 miles since it came off the line, so many might argue a top end strip
down wasn't worthwhile. The only reason we did it, was that he decided now
was the time to put new valve seats in prior to using unleaded fuel. Spent
the weekend bringing things to a close, tuning the carbs, setting the valve
clearances, tinkering around with a nice powerful strobe for the ignition
settings and all the other stuff. Great fun - took me back 30+ years.
This morning, got an irate phone call from Mike telling me he had the
greatest objection in being beaten off the lights by an electric milk
float! Came indoors an hour back having found out what caused this dramatic
power loss. Must admit, I was almost at my wits end because I knew the
dizzy was fully set up and the timing was spot-on. Wasn't until I jammed a
feeler gauge between the points in a futile gesture of know-all fault
tracking that the truth suddenly dawned. Contacts instantly opened to about
80 thou! Cause? Thread on the grubscrew holding the bottom contact breaker
plate in place had stripped and friction was the only thing maintaining a
sort of gap. After routing around in piles of junk and scrap, eventually
found a suitable replacement screw on an old lawnmower that is going to
that big grassbox in the sky in two days time.
Moral? Believe nothing that you hear and only half of what you see
John Macartney
Now in the same museum as the cars he sold when they were new
|