This was the NAUGHTY CORNER

Ehhhhh. Hnnnnnnng.

I have an irritation.

I've tried a Roadkill fix on something, and I think I've made it worse.

A few weeks back I started smelling coolant once up to temp and driving along.

When I had time to inspect it, I realised it was the top hose leaking at the join to the rad.

I suspect the Samco Silicon hoses on my car are a tad too big in diameter for my car. They are all a tad baggy.

The leaking join had previously been treated to two broad band hose clips and tightened up.

But here it was leaking again, and quite badly, so last weekend I had it all off to inspect the rad for holes, cracks, corrosion at the port. It all looked good.

So I decided that I'd be inventive, and I put a ring of chemweld stuff around the rad port so that as well as my two clips, the end of the hose was butted into the chemweld which would then set hard adding an extra discouragement to escaping pressure.

Drove it around, Kept checking it. No steam escaping. All good... I thought.

car has been parked for the week. I just decided to grab an hour for a quick drive. Got to the car. Dry road. Wet patch behind drivers wheel. Not dog pee.

A quick look and feel around revealed it has been steadily coming out of the upper/return hose joint, which was wet on the underside.

It must have had residual pressure slowly blubbing it out for a while, and some of it had gathered in the tray below the rad, and then dripped out onto the road.

So... I haven't solved it, and now I have a ring of hardened chem-weld to crack off again. I knew it was a stupid idea when I did it, but sometimes I can't help myself.

But hey ho. Problem still unsolved. Everything has to be pulled and looked at again, and I probably ought to order the right diameter hose if it refuses to tighten.

Here's what I'm wondering though... has my coolant pressure increased to the extent that it's just finding the weakest point to blow because I have a problem elsewhere (cracked head gasket for example)? That's my current worry... that I'm trying to fix an annoying joint leak when actually the joint leak is telling me I have a bigger problem.

It just seems odd that it will not go away.

I just topped up the coolant, tightened up the hose clips even more, dried off the join, and went for a drive to buy new coolant.

It's still getting wet under the join, even after the umpteenth tighten.

= (

Ha, yeah... mine doesn't overheat at all. It does get up to heat quite quickly (about 10mins from cold), but then it just sits there once it's arrived at temp.

I don't know for sure that the hoses are definitely too big. The car came with them already on though so I have no idea if they were made for the Scimitar or were just hanging around in a previous owner's garage. A set of blue Samco hoses, so not original parts. It's not like they're waggling around like a wizard's sleeve on a sausage, but they don't seem particularly snug either.

I really ought to just replace them all.

I don't know why but I've spent my entire time with this car convinced it either has, or will develop a head gasket problem. I don't really know why though. It doesn't show any signs of HG problems, yet it's always at the back of my mind.

I wish I could manage to stick to that! I really thought I was going to manage it when the Escort was nearing the end leaving me with just the yellow Scimitar, but then my friend offered me his Omega converted black Scimitar for peanuts and I couldn't refuse, even though it is in a right state.

Father Christmas came a little early to my house. He was muttering something about "Black Friday"...



Only trouble is they keep falling off as I'm driving along. I need more sticky fixers.

Edit: I had a devil of a job sourcing a set of tyres...namely due to the increasingly less well catered for 14" rim size.

I've been wanting to change my tyres since I got the car. The tyres it came with are Winda WP16s... a budget tyre from a Chinese manufacturer. I'd never driven a Scimitar before so it's been hard to determine whether a change of tyre might affect the ride positively, or whether my car is just a bit old, on hard springs, and lacking in comforts ... making it feel harsh. More importantly though the front 205/70's nudge the wheel arch when I'm turning towards full lock. So I've been hankering after something a bit narrower that wont offer such a prominent shoulder. The Windas are not listed as a van tyre, but they sure do drive and look like a van tyre to me.

I also knew I wanted fat Hercules on the rear. I like Hercules tyres. I've fitted them to a few 70's and sometimes early 80's cars. I like the way they look... basic and unfussy but with raised white letters for that little visual nod to the era.

Sizes for 14" Hercules are limited. I didn't want to end up with an obviously raked look. So I was looking for the right tyre size balance between wider back tyres and my need for a skinnier set of fronts, but with similar diameters. Then I found Openeo offer BF Goodrich at about £80, but again only in a couple of options for 14", so the search got even more complicated.

So I've spent weeks now in little moments of downtime, going backwards and forwards to my tiresize app, between the Hercules and BF options, then seeing whats out there for compatible fronts (an ocean of 14" van tyres basically) and hadn't found the right combination that I could press the button on.

So eventually I decided I'd have to relax a bit about a bit of rake (it's still not much... just under an inch difference front and back) and as North Hants were going to deliver my Hercules I thought I may as well go with their option for the fronts too. Didn't want white walls, but they were a good price and the right proportions, so I decided to just end the constant searching and go for them.

Literally two minutes after hitting the buy button, somebody mentioned they have Uniroyal Rainsports on their Scim in the exact size I wanted in the first place, and a bit cheaper than these Galaxy whitewalls. The Uniroyals never once came up in my searches. Not bloody once.

DAMN YOU TIMING.... DAMMNNN YOUUUUUUU

Eh, this weather. This rain. Please stop.

I really want to get my car out for a long drive. Don't want to do that on rain sodden streets though because I planned to update/refresh my underside protection this summer before the winter sets in and I didn't get around to it... so the idea of driving a car along salty seaside roads and spraying salty road water up into the chassis extremities doesn't feel like a smart thing to do.

Also... just had the brakes done and they need testing, but I want to give the car a good long run at high revs, and suddenly reaching an unexpected traffic build up on wet and possibly icy roads with untested brakes is also not on my wish list.

The reason I want/need to give the car a good run though is that lately all I have done in the car is very short, very local, very traffic heavy trips around the local neighbourhood.

What I discovered the last couple of times though was some mist/vapour/emission from the oil filler/breather cap. Not plumes of the stuff, but more than I've seen before on this car. Might just be condensation evaporating and made worse by the infrequent short trip nature of the car's use over the weeks.

Could also be valves, valve guides, worn or cracked rings or a failing HG. Oil looks clean, doesn't overheat. Doesn't seem to be losing coolant now I've found a few leaky hose joins and re-fitted/re-tightened them.

Need to give it a good long run first and foremost to see if it simply clears as cold weather condensation build-up. If not, I need to start looking deeper. With luck it'll be valves related.

In other news... I finally got rid of the awful cheap chinese van tires and put my tire of choice on the back...



But I also put some white ringed tires on the front which look absolutely hideous...



I wasn't ever planning on fitting the white rings outward facing... they just happened to be the right sized tires from the same vendor (Northhants) and are an increasingly rare 14" car tire in the size spec I needed to balance out the rears. Right price point, discounted for black friday and easy to deliver alongside the Hercules rears. So I got them with the intetion of fitting them black sides out. Then at the last minute the tire fitter said "Do you want these white rings on the outside?" and I thought "Why the hell not... stick em on the outside".

Instantly regretted that split-second decision. My god they look utter gash.

You'll have to do what I do. 05:00 on a Sunday morning. It's the only time I can get above 30kph!

Yep, that was exactly what I thought when I saw it, but he didn't seem to want to entertain the notion. Suggested I didn't know what I was talking about and that I worry too much. Well, he got me there, I do tend to worry about every possible potential problem with my car, but still... some things do seem to be as plain as day to me, and this was definitely one of them!

PS: I laughed hard at your sign-off line about the pedal bin.... = )

Just found this thread. Duly bookmarked. 😃

Have you considered Lucas L691/L692 rear lamps? They’re suitably period and a bit larger than the Land-Rover type ones you have at the moment; but not as large and modern looking as the other Scimitar you pictured earlier.

I agree that your mate sounds very much like he’s got a failed head gasket. If he’s been driving it like that enough to think it’s normal he probably has a cracked head too. I’d suggest he knows less about rebuilding engines than he’d like you to believe.

And my final contribution for tonight; from your description, I’d say 100% that Lurch is autistic. Autism is a spectrum, and where individuals are on it varies widely. I am certain your confrontations have been as confusing for him as they have been for you. One of the areas autistic people struggle with is reading the body language and non verbal cues of non autistic individuals and the inverse is also true; they are often very poor at matching the non-verbal signals they send out with the meaning they’re trying to express. This, combined with another common trait of lack of social filter means that they are often misinterpreted as rude, arrogant, condescending etc. Him continuing to verbalise his thoughts after you’ve finished is another sign, one that suggests the interaction has happened at a pace he has not been able to keep up with. Are you still having problems with him? If you are, then I can guarantee that there are better ways of resolving the issue than physical confrontation. If it escalates like that again, I’d urge you to try and restrain yourself, because people can do the strangest things in fear. Obviously, just because he’s autistic, doesn’t mean he can’t be an utter bell end, but you’ll never find out by shouting and shoving.

Well, I'm going to be back to posting car experiences and updates here on retrorides again from now on. When I got the Scim I was seduced by the lure of a dedicated Scimitar forum and being a one-track kind of person I switched all of my updates over there. I don't really like spreading the misery over too many places, I prefer to have it all in one place.

A lovely bunch, the Scimitar crowd, and very helpful. However, I never really felt like I fitted in there. It's not really a place for the kind of inane jibber-jabber I love to type. It's not a place for the unrepentant halfwit to ask stupid questions and blather on about any old tosh.

Unlike Retrorides

I think the value and strength of a place like this is that there are all sorts of people with all sorts of competences doing all sorts of things. There just isn't really time to pick one thing out and battle to the death for technical knowledge supremacy. It just doesn't feel at all important to be a proven expert. In my experience the more technically able somebody is here, the more humble they seem to be about it. I'm not a serious Scimitar owner, my car is a bit of a dog compared to the dedicated Scim owners' out there... purely because I prefer dogs to immaculate and correct classics. I could quite easily sell this on tomorrow to buy a Rover, another Humber, or almost anything that takes my fancy... if it's a dog. I'm not a Scim fanatic, and I think that's the key difference between me and a club for Scim owners. I lack the fanatical devotion to preservation.

So I've downloaded my progress thread over there and bid a fond farewell, and from now on my updates will be posted here again, as before.

Starting with...

I'm going to have a look into the smoking oil breather cap issue over the christmas break, weather/time permitting. I was surprised when downloading my progress thread that I had previously made a comment regarding the *relatively* heavy breathing back in February, and had then promptly forgotten about it. So evidently it isn't a new development at all... it probably gets more visible in the cold months and less visible in the summer months. It may still yet be a result of my infrequent, short, traffic heavy local driving. It may actually be exactly what would be expected of a 45 year old Essex, I have no idea.

But at this point I think it could equally be valves related so I'd rather investigate and have peace of mind. It's possibly an exhaust valve sticking. So first things first I'm going to lift the rockers off and have a finger-fiddle with the giblets and see if anything seems lose, like a rocker arm, or whether anything feels bound, like a valve stem if it's possible to check that with ease from above, and then I'll see about tolerances/clearances that can be gauged/adjusted from the top view with the heads still in place. One thing I do know, it's a curse word looking at engine stuff in an SE5a engine bay. I might need to do some sore-back-related swearing.

I'll be looking into any possible action that can be taken with the rockers off and the heads still in place... whether there is any cleaning/soaking that can be done at that point to try and free up a sticking valve or de-crust a valve seat from above, or whatnot.

It may well end up requiring the heads to come off. Before that though I plan to take a quick video and post it up for thoughts on the amount of breathing I'm doing. It's so slight really that it could just be par for the course, but I like to be sure.

Beyond that, it could feasibly be a stuck piston ring or broken piston ring. If it came to that though, I'd have to seriously think about whether it's worth stripping down this engine fully, or whether the cost of doing that might be better spent commissioning a replacement engine. I may look further into any sound methods of tipping a little bit of something into the bores to soak through the piston rings. People used to tip 40ml of old-formula Redex into the bores and turn the engine over to move it around... but it seems that Redex' formula has changed since those days and it may not have any effect, or even have a detrimental effect to do it with the modern Redex formula.

I will also do an oil and filter change though realistically it is not due for one just yet.

Having realised I already mentioned the breathing in February and the response then was that these engines do tend to be heavy breathers and it's nothing to worry about, I'm less concerned about it, but the rocker cover gaskets need replacing anyway, so I may as well have a little fiddle and see what's what when I do that.