keith5700

Ha Ha! Yes I'm afraid I built everything from scratch. Go in the garage with a bar of aluminium, then 6 months later a helicopter pops out. Vinz I'll try and give you a ring from work tomorrow, otherwise my home no. is 01332 556237

Making a helicopter, telescope and a fish tank at the moment........

Nick, I think you'll have to try it as it is first and see what happens. It would be better if the connections were on top of the oil cooler, rather than the bottom. With both connections on the bottom I don't know if a check valve would work. The oil could obviously drain down the pipe without the valve in it, and just drag the oil through the valve. If you have a thermostat in line then it may not be a problem, because on cold start the oil wouldn't go through the cooler, so you'd build up pressure fairly quickly, and then as the thermostat opened slowly the oil would fill up the cooler over a short period and you'd probably not notice a bit of a pressure drop for a while, whilst it was filling. This is assuming it did drain out over time. It may not. From my own experience I'd scrap the oil cooler and keep it as simple as poss on the oil side. you shouldn't need the cooler really, especially if you're running a roller cam.

Nick, do you think you may have a problem with the oil draining back from that high mounted oil cooler, when you switch the engine off? I had an oil cooler on mine for a while and it was mounted fairly low, but it did drain back, and took a while to build up pressure after start up. I re-mounted it lower and it worked better, but I scrapped it in the end as it was more trouble than it was worth.

Hi Nick, that seal blowing looks very strange. Is the orange thing the actual hydraulic seal or is it a dust seal over the top. If it's the actual seal then to me it looks like the piston was maybe at the very end of its travel and the seal then blew out as there was nothing left to constrain the inner diameter of the seal. I can't remember how it was in my car but should there be a spacer behind the hydraulic unit to bring it closer to the flywheel? When it's fitted you only need, say, 6mm of gap between the bearing and the clutch fingers, with the piston fully home. You have to have some gap 'cos as the clutch plate wears the fingers move closer to the bearing. I'd double check the gap before you bolt everything back up. You should be able to see how much gap there is by looking through that square hole in the bellhousing where the clutch fork used to go. Did you dismantle the piston or just fitted it as it left me? If the gap is ok as you had it, and you didn't dismantle it before it was fitted then the only other thing it could be is if the seal stuck to the inner piston over the last 18 or so months, athough that's a long shot. I'd go with the gap being wrong at the moment. Cheers, Keith.

All I ever do is send it back for a re-issue with a different engine size and engine number. Don't change anything else at the same time tho. If it comes back ok then that's it, just carry on like it was a normal car.

Nick, have you got a reg. document for the original car?

Bloody ell Pete, I only wanted the spark plugs changing!

What a coincedence, I bought a 54 plate st220 last week. Paid £7000, with 46k on the clock. Wanted a monaro but couldn't scrape the cash together really. First impressions, brakes crap, ride quality good, seats crap, engine really smooth and quiet but don't know why people get so excited about the performance, it's not what you'd call a fast car. S'pose it depends what you're used to. Tried an overtake on a country road two days ago, blimey, could have done with some nitrous halfway through. Not much low down torque, not much power below 5000rpm. Feels very heavy and not much feel through the wheel. Clutch feels a bit wooly too. Yes I know I'm used to bigger engines but I was still a bit dissapointed with the acceleration. Having said all that, looking at it purely as a family saloon it's very nice and we actually like it.

John, that sounds brilliant, bit better than the Chevy really, when it's on full chat. Very nice. I'd better go now else I'll be wanting another one!

Nick, remember it's rods 2 and 5 which may hit the cam.

Thanks for that Richard. I just assumed the manual was the more desireable, but I'm probably living in the past, where autos were horrible grandad things. I need to blag a test drive at the main dealers here, try the auto. Cheers.

Richard. I'm just saving for my next car now. Have decided on either the SLK or a Monaro. I don't think I could stretch to an AMG55 but have my eyes on the 350 manual. Would you say the 350 is still pretty quick as sports cars go? Do you think it's worth finding a manual. Never driven a tiptronic auto, don't know anything about them at all. Do owners generally take out extended warranties on them, or is that only really essential with the AMG? ie, what's the worst that can go wrong/blow up on them. Cheers, Keith.

Seems I paid £295 with del. So, £175 delivered.

Let me look out the paperwork, I can't remember how much I paid for it