Technical

during the Running-in period of my T24 i found that the suspension was making some strange graunching noises, mostly noticable at slow speed and parking etc. various rouses were tried- PTFE spray on shox bushes, greased pull rods, oiled springs, some improved matters but only short term.

I stripped down one spring unit and found the spring chaifing on it's retaining cup (photo)

the spring needed to be lifted away from it's retaining cup but clearly gravity was going to do it's thing whenever you drove over a hump-back bridge a bit quick. the cup measures just larger than the spring diameter so no room for a 3D printed seat for the spring.

what i made was a shim to seperate spring from cup- this was a strip of PTFE plastic about .014" thick, 1 1/4" x 7" and sticky backed- left over from a kitchen refit where it's use…

Has anyone come up with a suitable dip stick for the 850 engine? I have a medical condition that causes me great pain in my skull when I bend over (no jokes please) and don't like trying to look at the sight gauge as it's so low.

I'm not sure if this is a technical matter or not. However, I can confirm that a V-Sport with a half tank of petrol and one occupant weighing in at a modest 104 kilos (NHS Certified) will easily reach 90 m.p.h. It might have done more but I wasn't checking the revs, just the speedo. This was confirmed by my satnav so the speedo must be close to accurate, which is nice.

The where and the when is my business your honour but it was a safe envirnonment at the time or I wouldn't have tried. The car is so much nicer now it's serviced and run in and going through the gears is not constrained by limiting the revs to 4500. The upshot is that I love it even more and will continue to explore it's enjoyment possibilities (but not it's dynamic envelope as I've already had a couple…

Done some night driving and watched the cars battery struggle to maintain itself. Soooo, wondering about replacing headlight bulbs for the above, any thoughts, advice, ridicule ???