Messages

Thanks Graham. Spanner on the way.

I have been checking every day for weeks with no luck.

There are times when I'm considering pushing the car off a cliff just because it's not assembled in metric. Utter pain in the back for me.

I should be able to answer my own question in not too long if I can eventually source a 1" Whitworth ring spanner.

Where in the world can such a thing be found?

Dear all,

Has anyone on here successfully replaced the camshaft on their Bristol engine without taking the engine out of the car?

Thanks.

"The attachments directory can not be located. Please notify an administrator of this problem."

The hosting option is probably ticked off for now as a matter of data volume management?

This is an excellent video by Mr. Strange. Thank you very much for that, especially for those who could not attend.

Congratulations to Mr. Archibald for setting up what seemed a brilliant event with an incredible turn out.

Good evening,

I have been considering retiring the original rockers of my Bristol engine and replace them with modern "upgrades" from Nuthall or Stokes. Does anyone on here have experience with either? Any pros and cons?

Thanks in anticipation.

Something I'm interested to hear about is if there is anybody that has any experience with using Blockley tyres on an Ace? I have spoken to people that have used them on other cars from the same period that are very positive towards them.

Hello Jonas,

I have been running Blockley Cross Ply tyres on my Ace for 5 years, in the standard 5.50x16" size. Although comparing them with the worn out Michelin X tyres that they replaced would not be completely fair, I have been very pleased with the Blockleys as they make for I think a very good handling and have made the steering feel lighter and more reponsive than it is. Mine are now certainly less sticky and a little harder than they were new but they still perform very well, at least for sparse road use. I have found a necessity to overinflate them when letting the car sit for several weeks in order to avoid flats, which take some driving getting rid of even on a light car like an Ace. This is perhaps their only drawback, though I guess all tyres suffer from flats on cars used not often enough.
A cosmetic plus for me is that Blockley Cross Plys have a wider sidewall and make the car look a bit more serious and grown up than with any of the other slimmer radial offerings that make the car look very dated, nearly with bicycle wheels.

Having already organised 3 ACOC trips to Le Mans Classic, I would love to hand over to someone new. Please form an orderly queue and register your application for the job!

I suppose a local could be appointed volunteer... apart perhaps from organising ferry tickets? To be discussed  ;)

I enjoyed meeting with Gary on Friday morning at Le Mans Classic who showed me around his neatly-upgraded Saloon and I consider the defection of a proper hands-on enthusiast a significant loss to the club.

However one thing I would like to say at this stage is that the Internet does not allow some communication nuances such as the tone and irony to pass through and requires a high level of restrain as we post that I have always found somewhat frustrating - it's just not like we can chat on here like we would around a dinner table after the umpteenth glass of wine, for instance.

I would strongly encourage Gary to join back and show us through articles in ACtion all the things he has done to upgrade his car. It really is not that difficult. If a basic foreigner like me can write several page articles every now and then then that should not be too much of a problem for a proper English chap who has proper technical things to say rather than just tries to say something. Come on Gary, we know you can do it and do every one and yourself a favour. Continued engineering and developments are what our cars need to keep going strong and hold the AC name well high in the motoring hall of fame.

Nice one Barrie. Wish there was at least one drive with my Ace in the last 7 years that would not remind me of the people gone.

I do not think I have ever seen one with only 1 wire, or is it the photo?
What sort of equipment do you use to monitor AFR?
Sorry for the questions, just interested in what others do. I have used a Zeitronix wideband and now PLM devices with a fully programmable ECU, though that's with another car.

Is it a lambda sensor in one of the manifolds?

Whilst the forum offers a more or less immediacy in how members can interact sitting from home, it suffers from a certain ephemeral vibe that afflicts most if not all Internet-based ways of communications.
It seems to me that ACtion has always encouraged the authors of articles to go in a certain depths within the topics/stories they were writing about, as one may probably expect anything to be actually written and printed to be of higher quality that what we may and do read on the Internet sometimes, notwithstanding the effort we all make to keep the content on here of generally high quality.
I do hope that members will keep writing for ACtion on topics that go a bit deeper than the usual technical chit chat.

I know it's a cliché, but may I also state that before stating that the club does not offer what we expect from it, we should perhaps question ourselves in what we could bring to it. Just like with life in general people who bring the least are very good at complaining the most.

In order to reduce under bonnet temperatures I would always recommend ceramic-coating inside and out as much as possible of an exhaust set up, at least the manifolds. Exhaust wrap is a good minimum with mild steel tubes although I personnally do not like it as it can trap moisture and accelerate corrosion, depending on the use of the car. It is certainly fine for a full race car but not so on a road car, in my opinion.

A friend who is nearing the completion of a full mechanical restoration on a Dino 246 GTS commented that the stainless steel manifolds he installed had a tendency to gleam red hot under certain running conditions. He will wrap them but I suspect that the stainless (thus very hard) nature of the steel used will not help and that the wrapping will do more harm than good over the long term.