charlie_pank

It's my understanding that the Avons are an order of magnitude more expensive than the AO21Rs. My friend ran Toyo Proxes on his MK2 golf. I don't remember him needing a new set the whole time he owned the car - including a few track days. Personally that says to me that the tyre is probably too hard for 7 use but maybe they come in different compounds?

I just have this nagging doubt at the back of my mind that if the Ford diffs are alright in Fords, they should be alright in 7s. Perhaps it's to do with getting the alignment right with the washers? If they're not aligned maybe the pinion bearing wears prematurely leading to excess play in the pinion/crown-wheel interface. What about the propshaft? In our cars the propshaft is splined where it enters the gearbox - although this is actually unnecessary as the diff is fixed to the same chassis as the gearbox. What about in the original Ford installations? Does the gearbox end of the propshaft terminate in a spline or a flange? Someone has suggested that the Escorts had a 2 piece propshaft with a central UJ bolted to an intermediate bearing. I wonder what difference our different configurations have and why...

You have compressed the spring, right?

Did you fill it with oil or did they?

Any info about what turned out to be wrong with it?

So NO ONE has had one actually FAIL, they just get noisy? In which case the next question is: why do they get noisy in 7s but not in other cars?

It's even smoother if you leave the clutch out completely :)

Did you ever find out what it was that had caused it to get so loud? For the record, I've never been able to hold a shouted conversation in my 7 before or after the engine swap at over 30mph! Edited by - charlie_pank on 24 Aug 2012 15:49:48

There have been a lot of threads on here about noisy diffs recently. It's always a tricky one ad there are several confounding factors: The car's design means the diff noise is far more noticeable than in a tin-top Some 7s have tunnel covers, upholstered seats etc some do not and this will affect the noise heard Some of us drive with windscreens, some with aeros Some of us drive with hearing protection, some don't The diff noise sounds different from driver and passenger seats Some have exhaust exits on the right some on the left (exhaust/induction noise may mask diff noise) Some of us have engines that give max torque at 3500, some at 12,000 rpm Some of us have rubber in the drivetrain some don't, some have rubber in the engine/gearbox mountings, some don't Many of us run wildly different gear ratios and diff ratios, even different ggearboxes, some with short propshafts, some with long 2-piece affairs with intermediate uj Some have lightened flywheels And so on... all of these things and more will affect diff noise My point is there are many many reasons why it's very difficult for one owner to comment conclusively on another's diff noise. More often than not the cause of the noise you hear from the diff is elsewhere, even if it actually does make the diff louder. So, to put the complaints about noise in perspective, how many people have suffered a diff FAILURE, how did it fail and did it make a specific or louder noise before doing so?

Perhaps the black is from the friction plate material?

I just got one from Bigg-red they do them on an exchange basis so they work out about £35 a corner IIRC

Why would you want a 1.8 over a 1.6? The extra 200cc doesn't give you much that you can't get out of the revvier 1.6. If you really wanted to go 1.8 you 'just' need to swap out the crank, pistons and conrods of your 1.6

1. Don't know 2. the spring length will determine how high the car sits and thus how much of the damper is exposed at rest - James Whiting says aim for 1/3 bump to 2/3 droop at rest. Will the protech dampers be the same length as the ones you're taking off - if yes, you can just use the same length springs. 3. A spring is graded in terms of how much force (weight) gives how much compression, I guess the diameter affects the rate at which it compresses - you'll need to look that up, but I presume the spring manufacturer will be able to recommend a rate for your application and weight of car. 4. As above

Quoting gundersen: @Charlie: I am aware that much more powerful cars have gotten by with this cooling system, RJ has not neglected to point that out to me several times However seeing another SV with the exact same spec as mine having the exact same problem got me thinking, and perhaps most of the accumulated wisdom around here are based on S3's and not S5's. So perhaps the SV suffers from some kind of design flaw... Well I like the idea of the PRRT so I might just go ahead and fit one, also means I dont have to wait for the other thermostat to arrive Pop quiz: 1) How do I verify the presence/absence of air locks in the system? 2) How much water is a radiator supposed to flow? Just so I know what to look for when testing it with the garden hose. There might be one or two other SVs with the same problem but if there's even one that doesn't then it's not a design flaw causing your problem. It is however notoriously difficult to fill the cooling system and perfectly possible that 2 people have air locks... My suggested method for clearing them is to unbolt the expansion tank and hang it from the garage ceiling a couple of feet above the engine bay with the lid off. Turn on the heater and loosen every hose clamp you can find. Undo the bleed screw of the radiator. Now squeeze each tube to force coolant out of each joint. Work from the lowest point to the highest, tightening each clamp and the bleed screw once only water is escaping, no coolant. Once that's done, run the engine for as long as you dare wit the expansion tank's lid off and the tank still suspended. Keep topping up as necessary, once you're done switch off the engine.and close the tank lid.

Our 20 year-old hilux was fine in 50 degrees in the desert of Kazakhstan. The Jeep Cherokee we were with nipped a couple of the radiator pipes closed to fix a leak earlier in the trip and they were fine too!

I see. If there's an airlock somewhere other than the J hose, then it won't help. When I put my new (to me) engine in the car, the first time I ran it it had been sitting still for 2 years. It took a LOT of persuasion to fill the block's waterways and eliminate all the airlocks in the rest of the cooling system. It involved loosening strategic hose clips and squeezing pipes, tightening up the hoseclips in the right order, a bit of running without the expansion cap on and crucially, suspending the expansion bottle a few feet above the engine bay while filling it and running up to temp with the cap off. The whole experience drew me to conclude that normally when you just drain the coolant and refill with new, there are lots of places it doesn't come right out of, so you don't have the problems I did with the initial fill after a long (dry) lay-up. Edited by - charlie_pank on 20 Aug 2012 12:52:35

I'm not really sure that I understand what a PRRT does, even after reading the wikipedia page. Can someone explain in simple terms? How does it eliminate airlocks? Where does the air go and how is it forced out of the places it is lodged in? Where does the extra water needed to fill the gap left by the expelled air come from?

Quoting gundersen: Quoting charlie_pank: I reckon you've got an air lock somewhere or your radiator is partly blocked.I don't know much about the persistence of air locks, but I have changed coolant three times (one time also changing all the hoses) while observing the problem. Of cause it might just be me doing it wrong, in which case I could change the coolant as many times as I want and still see the air lock Quoting Roadsport06: The cooling system is up to the job for a 140bhp k seriesAre you sure it is? I know of at least one other SV with exactly the same spec as mine which suffers from the same problem. Also a couple of answers in this thread suggests that the SVs might have a cooling problem. Quoting Roadsport06: so a fancy rad is surely a bit OTT.Well is a nice upgrade ever OTT? 😬 Quoting Roadsport06: Put in a new thermostatYou are of cause right, I could/should wait till I get the new thermostat from CC. Quoting Roadsport06: put in a bleed teeAlready done that Quoting Roadsport06: flush the rad (to check the flow isn't blocked)I will try that one, should be little extra work when I am fitting the new thermostat. As always, thank you for your feedback it is much appreciated! 😶‍🌫️ Air lock is caused by the combination of compromised design and failure to fill correctly. You haven't changed the design, so if you have an air lock it was caused by the way it was filled, if you filled it the same way each time there's no reason to expect the air lock wasn't re-created each time. There are far more powerful engines than yours (more power = more fuel burned per second = more heat) which are perfectly adequately cooled by the same radiator that you have... food for thought! Edited by - charlie_pank on 20 Aug 2012 12:10:26

I reckon you've got an air lock somewhere or your radiator is partly blocked. You could try disconnecting it at both ends and flushing it with a hose pipe. Also, you could try running the engine from cold with the expansion cap off to eliminate air locks...

John, I'd replace the @ with an 'at' and the '.' with the word 'dot' unless you want lots of unsolicited mail

I spoke to James Whiting about this a while ago and he recommended aiming for 1/3 bump to 2/3 droop when loaded. I measured 'bump' as the distance before hitting the bump-stop. linky Edited by - charlie_pank on 13 Aug 2012 13:16:26

IiRC Redline charges about £11 for a disc...

Driving a sports car down the Manhattan grid-system would not be an enjoyable experience, regardless of time of day...unless you managed to ride the green wave all the way!

Outrageous! I just renewed mine for £260!

Depends on the car - if the owner built it himself surely it seems a bit academic to worry about whether or not he changed the oil regularly enough?