The van has done it again

[Jim Stewart]

Oh dear ....

[Jim Stewart]

cool I always thought you should be frugal and run the car until the belt broke.....good for the environment...cuts waste of flinging away perfectly good cam belts....your posts are great Tim .....

[Jim Stewart]

we use tractors in Scotland to go shopping.....

[Jim Stewart]

but then again Jesse Ray is super cool......

[Jim Stewart]

side valves ? ...

[Jim Stewart]

i had a couple of pug 405s...last one was unrepairable so I cut halfway through the cam belt and revved it up just to hear the tinkle of valved hitting pistons...hate pugs....

[Jim Stewart]

mine to but they said you were better with a battery condition meter measuring voltage,,,,

[Andrew]

And a battery a lot closer to the engine :-)

[Andrew]

Don't buy a modern Ford, like a Fiesta or Focus. No tensioner at all. Belts are stretch-fit and need a special tool.

[Andrew]

'Aunty' rover and mk1 landy. Side and Overhead valves.

[Andrew]

JCB fastrak is quite nippy.

[Jim Stewart]

no chance

[Jim Stewart]

sorry mine too...yes battery was in the trunk in the old mini...

[Andrew]

Nope. nothing at all. The belt is made to fit with the correct tension from new, as installed on the production line. Saves a few quid per car, which mounts up if you build millions of them world-wide.

Saabs with their version of a GM engine had an enormous serpentine belt driving loads of stuff. That had a spring-loaded jockey wheel but you needed a long bar with a fitting that engaged with the jockey wheel body and two people to get the belt in place over and under all the pulleys while holding the jockey wheel back.

[charles]

and it does sit in "full load path".

[The Natural Philosopher]

No SLIDE valves. Oh probably should have said 'sleeve' valves.

But side valves work, too....

[Steve Walker]

I'd forgotten about that type, but yes I do remember those now. Red plastic, with an aluminium insert in one end and that the other end could be pushed over after cutting to length.

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

And they have long been like that. I remember that over forty years ago we got stuck in the middle of the Severn Bridge with a blown-out caravan tyre and no spare. We were stuck for ages, as the wind was getting up and they refused to send vans onto the bridge. Eventually they did come in a truck, take the wheel away and return with a new tyre fitted. My father, who'd been a member for 25 years and had never called them out, was fuming at being charged for the call-out - because the cover didn't extend to private land and so toll-bridges weren't covered!

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

When my (new) electric fan on my kit-car disintegrated and put a blade through the radiator, the AA guy first towed me off the motorway, then removed the radiator. He disappeared for well over an hour and returned with a new one from thirty-odd miles away. He then fitted and filled it and I was on my way home (Bristol to Manchester) - relying upon movement to give cooling air-flow ... which was not good on a bank holiday weekend with multiple jams.

Mine does, but only because I bought a second-hand carrier and wheel to fit the unoccupied, inverted well.

I did that having suffered a blowout in a hire car in Ireland and finding that not having a spare meant that we were unable to visit the cemetery that evening; had to pay for recovery to a tyre place; had to be dropped at our accommodation in the middle of nowhere, where we were stranded and could not even go out for food. Next morning we struggled to get a taxi to get to the garage; had to pay way over the odds for the tyre, as we'd had no choice where; and only just made it back to the airport in time.

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

Also a problem with cars that have differing front and rear wheel/tyre sizes or are physically too small to carry a spare.

SteveW