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Having just returned from the the NEC (last night) my comment to myself on seeing the AC stand was boring, boring, boring, boring. They should get themselves off the stand with the chain link fencing that give out the message to punters that they are not approachable, and see just how more oriented other clubs are in being proactive in encouraging new members. I was on the Octagon stand yet again and it was difficult to get off with the number of people waiting to ask questions, chat and talk. The stand was equal to the 289 stand boring.
    Perhaps if all the clubs forced the organisers to pay costs to the exhibiters then a more appealing exhibition would be created
   The picture uploaded did not look like the one I saw yesterday it looked even more boring!

A) You only have to make the outer cone with loose spindle adapters as machines tend to have different spindles.B) I balance mine on a big tall Vee Blocks. C) I don't bother most of the time after fitment as they always seem to be ok up to 100mph. D) I keep to the speed limits.

Having written the above, sat down for a cuppa (tea), and cogitated, the coil is marked CB and SW. When I check with my all singing and dancing diagnostic kit I connect my instrument to the CB terminal if I want to check the revs or dwell, try that with your strobe light.

You can tell whether you are -ve or +ve earth by looking at your battery connections. If as originally built the +ve terminal will go down to earth. I assume your term for dwell plug is the coil lead to the distributer? The sensor wire for your timing light on most instruments connects to this wire, and as I converted my heap to the modern polarity -ve earth then the coil-points lead is connected to the either -ve or sw terminal of the coil.
   There are no electronics in your rev counter other than the light bulb if it is as built. Discrepancy between your light and rev counter must be something wrong with the way you are setting the controls on your strobe light. I would prefer to believe the cars rev counter. My ticker is usually about 800rpm any lower then the revs drop off 50ish when dipping the clutch. The dwell angle, not percentage for a 6 cylinder engine generally should be about 35deg + or - a couple of degrees I think mine is 36deg with 0.016" points clearance, but it is some time since I last checked.

The Greyhound has a mechanical rev counter and works exactly like the speedometer, a rotating magnet inside a steel 'drum', the faster the magnets rotate  - driven by the cable from the distributer - the further the magnets pull the 'drum'  - connected to the needle - round and hence indicates speed. Chronometric speedometers and tachometers use an escapement mechanism similar to a clock. useful when you blow the engine up as the last rpm reading is retained.
   I would suggest that you have the timing light set up wrong or not connected to the coil the right way round, depends whether you are negative earth or as originally on the Greyhound positive earth. I daresay the instructions presume that you are connecting up to a modern car which uses -ve earth.

Ask if you can borrow it or another and make a mould in fibre glass then you can make as many as you like. Done this sort of thing many times with school kids making go kart seats plus moulds for tunnels fitted to other cars and especially unobtainable motorcycle side panels.

I eventually ended up with 11/2" SU's and a 731 cam plus all the other mods.  I was in the Merchant Navy then so could not have it too tuned because my girl friend(wife) at the time used it when away, though I subsequently found out that she would often use all the performance through the gears when frustrated by twonks in Jaguars and MGB's.
   Regarding the vacuum take offs on the spacers, I will take a photo of mine as they are really unobtrusive, if you really are reluctant then I would really go for the Synchro-Check flow meter as it much more accurate than the 'pipe in the ear'. If you want to try out all three systems then you are quite welcome to see them working, I live in South Shropshire.

I have already mentioned that as the carbs did not have vacuum take offs I fitted brass tubes to the spacer blocks/throttle linkage adaptors. If you use the carb tune manometer set up then you can monitor the vacuums from each carb with out having listen to the hiss individually from each carb. If you have the Bristol work shop manual it shows this set up but with 'U' tubes and mercury columns and caps on each carb - I made some caps and tubes and it was a pain. Problem with using mercury is that if it is inadvertently ingested into the engine it has an affinity to the lead in the main and big end bearings. The other advantage with these manometers is that having balanced the butterfly opening at tick over, then you can observe any difference when setting the idle mixture plus you can check that each butterfly is opening equally as you open the single throttle linkage which is not possible with the ear and tube set up. I dread to think how far out the carbs were on the Cooper S's I had in the sixties having tried that method and checked with the carb tune set up that I now have.
   There is another  Crypton Syncro Check on eBay at less than £20 at the moment.

Hmm, I haven't got three ears.

Just checked eBay and there is a Crypton Syncro Check for sale at £75 and loads of the Carbtunes from around £40.

I use two methods. The first is with the Crypton Synco Check air flow meter which has a rubber cone for round bell mouth carbs and if you remove the cone there is a flat rubber pad which sits over the intake on the Solexs, they work in any orientation. You get them on 'rip off bay' occasionally which is where I got mine from. The other is to use manometer tubes and not the Bristol way with mercury that you can accidentally have sucked into the engine or with manometer fluid. In motor cycle circles you can get a four (or two) column manometer that uses steel rods. If you drill the spacer below the carbs and fit small brass tubes, then the individual manometer pipes can be connected to each carb, the height the rods rise will tell you which carbs are open more than the other ones. The higher columns will show a greater vacuum hence butterflies need to be opened. Because the rods are all together then you can check that they are also opening together as the throttles are progressively opened. The firm is called Carbtune and are or were based in Belfast, so do a search for them or get the motorcycle comics that come out on Wednesdays. I am just about to balance the carbs on one of my motorcycles after rebuild and they are a godsend. Of course if you have the Weber carbs then the vacuum take offs are already fitted. Both methods are a two minute check now for out of balance butterflies.
   Hope this helps.

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I always thought the AC Owners Club was for the benefit of those who live within the M25 or Home Counties. Anywhere north of the Watford Gap is no mans land.

Does anyone have or know of someone who has a spare serviceable or refurbishable Bristol cylinder block. I am not a Fred Goodwin type on a six figure pension neither am I inclined to pay IOM opportunistic rates for a Ôcooking ACÕ. If not, then  the engine will go to the metal merchants and the car be consigned to the rear of the garage for the mice to colonise and the gran children to play in.

Has anyone tried solid copper head gaskets on the Bristol engine? They seam to be highly rated on engines that are blown, so was wondering about using them on the standard Bristol engine. I have a couple lying around.