A was for Austin, but now B is for Bedford

Just to make things a bit more acceptable . . .

Who stole the dizzy?

Nobody has stolen the distributor, what you can see to the left of the fuel pump is the crankcase strainer - a gauze filter tube that filters oil entering the oil pump suction tube. I'll take it out later today and take a picture of it for you cobbadog, and others that might be interested.

I've been promising myself I would clean this since filling the sump with water cobbadog - but by the looks of it this was way overdue.

The gauze had actually been sucked inwards. Returned to correct shape (sort of) and considerably cleaner now. When put back into the sump the lower part fits onto the oil pump inlet tube.



Apologies for the first picture being upside down (not that it makes much difference), new phone and still getting to grips with it!? :blush:

Discovered the speedo was locked up so embarked on an exercise of discovery.

Once stripped down this far . . .


. . . I had to lever the centre part with a screw driver to get it to move, then thorough saturation with carby cleaner and light oil managed a very stiff turn. It was not looking very promising at first, but using a small square drive tool and a drill things improved nicely.

Reassembly was interesting with the speedo working backwards before realising the counter spring had slipped past the stop peg; and despite attempts to rewind the odometer to zero I gave up in frustration!

Final result will hopefully work suitably once in the dash.


PS Yes, I did repaint the inside before assembly.

I have pulled apart many speedos in my time (started when I was a kid). Usually there is a tiny (3/16"?) welsh plug type thing inboard from the thread where the cable screws on. It has a pinhole in it, but I pop the whole thing out and drip diesel into it. There is felt in there. The diesel soaks in overnight and the brass bit at the back can be turned (VERY carefully) with pliers / vise grips after some tapping.
To reset the odometers, I pop the spacer off the shaft (often have to make one good odometer up out of two, or three) and everything can be spun back to zero and reasembled.

In any case, good to see some progress.

Jarrod.

I started at the back as you did Jarrod, but it was obviously going nowhere fast.

I even considered changing the speedo and instrument cluster gauge for a Triumph 2500 speedo and tachometer, simply because I had some spare - plus they fitted the existing holes in dash and used the same speedo cable fitting. However, if I had done this I would have had to fit separate gauges for oil/water/etc., and it would have needed me to remove the original capillary activated temperature gauge which is worked into the completed part of my main loom!

I tried running the tumblers on the odometer backwards and despite much fiddling trying to re-zero them couldn't quite figure any rhyme or reason to it. Thanks for your interest and comment, but not going to bother with it now; too much other stuff still to do. :dry:

If I could wind it back, I would take it back to 99,900. This gives me a 100 miles to get the bugs wroked out then ready for rego and that would be around all the zero's.

To turn back ................ just Clik here

cya

Miles not time Swishy!

It's dem little numbers on the whirly gig thingo - part of the flux capacitor???