With Steve's (Carledo) words just read about Dolly owners flapping about engine temperature all of the time (it was you lot that put the fear of god into me in the first place!) I won't be mentioning that my Sprint is still running really hot (bugger, sorry). I've put a brand new thermostat in it, a Febi 81°C meant for a SAAB according to the 'no reg, no part' excuse of a motor factors I have locally. This has improved warm up and I think helped cooling. The old one was a 'Waxstat' and looked pre-war, are they even still going?
I can see why everyone says a header tank helps with cooling, my 21 year old 3 Litre turbo diesel Daihatsu never gets hot, stays at the same temperature as if the needle was glued there even after a long run into heavy traffic in 28°C heat but noticed today that a huge junk of the radiator fins have oxidised away! Now this radiator is no bigger than the Sprints, looks thinner too and together with an viscous engine fan is still keeping things perfectly cool. The big difference is capacities, the Daihatsu at 10.6 litres of water is double that of the Sprint's so I'm guessing it's all about the doubled thermal mass at play.
A weird thing that I've noticed is that sometimes the steering goes all, well, tight in a smooth sort of notchy way, like pushing something heavy on ice, takes a shove to move but then suddenly slides about jerkily is the only terrible analogy I can think of! Even odder is that it only seems to do this when the radiator fan has been running for awhile, so I'm guessing blowing hot air at the rack perhaps? I dunno, it's weird, anyone had something similar?
Actually, more heat questions, everything seems to go wobbly with the handling in this weather, is this just a sign of old bushings going soft in the heat? Lot of clonking and juddering when pulling away as well, yet again only in this really hot weather we're having at the minute.
The PO notes said that they had replaced all of the springs and shocks but I do find the car walloway in corners. Not only that but the offside front makes a rubbing sound under hard cornering so unless my memory is playing tricks and modern cars have coloured my opinion I remember Dolomites as being taught firm handling, should I be looking at replacing the springs?
Speaking of heat, as I was sat in the car my svelte derriere (or honking great big fat arse, YMMV) felt itself slowly sinking, so hopefully the club has a seat diaphragm left as I think mine melted.
That just leaves the daisy...
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