paul macintyre

Thank you all so much. All very helpful, I think I can manage now but I'll ping you, Jonathan, the (dis) assembly guide will be very interesting. Best wishes all round. Kind regards Paul Macintyre

Hello My headlights have lost their sheen for some reason, anyway they need to come off to get resprayed. Can anyone either supply or point me in the direction of a removal sequence? It is far harder than I expected! Looking suspiciously like I may need to cut the wires at the connector inside the engine bay??? Many thanks. Paul Macintyre

OK thanks to all, I have now had time to take another look, what I have, measuring from the top of the filler neck down is; a flange with a 3.5 cm hole 4 cm down. the oil return pipe, the centre of which is 7 cm down. 16.5 cm down is a large flange the size and shape of the whole tank. It has four holes in it, three side by side to the rear and one forward of the centre hole of the rear three. Each measures approximately 3.5 cm. There is no 5 mm hole. With the engine cold it is 23 cm to the oil surface. I made a dipstick out of a BBQ skewer. With the engine hot and running, the baffle with the 4 holes is covered by oil, the surface of which now lies at 13 cm so the level rises 10 cm when hot. Five minutes after switching off, the level is still 13 cm, falling to 13.5 by 10 minutes. I think the cold measure with a bamboo skewer is the way to go but does this description sound in any way familiar to anyone? Many thanks again. PM

My gosh! James, thank you so much!! I would not have worked that out in a million years. Guess what I'm doing first thing tomorrow morning. Very best wishes, PM ps what an engine!!!!!

Hi, can some kind person let me know in words of one syllable that a complete idiot can follow, how to check the oil in my new (to me) 7? To give you an idea of how stupid, I just spent half an hour looking for a dipstick before resorting to the handbook. It hasn't helped; The handbook instructs; "..open the dry sump tank cap.... (which I assume is the big knurled cap on the triangular metal tank ahead of the engine, identified simply as the 'oil tank' in the handbook photo)....and look inside, you will find two baffles with centre holes. In normal condition the oil should run approximately 5mm below the middle baffle level." That will be the middle baffle out of two?? And how to judge 5mm down a hole with hot oil sploshing around? And there aren't any baffles at all as far as I can see, just a flange with a big hole in it and a steel pipe underneath that, out of which the oil flows. Or am I looking down the wrong hole? And while I'm in confused mode, why have 2 oil filler caps? Many thanks, Paul M