Advice opinions please

[David C]

Here is a picture to illustrate the difference Andrew refers to. The gearbox tunnel was originally pretty much symmetrical. The hole for the linkage at the top of the red area has had to move outward about 2 inches to get a clean vertical drop down the side of the transmission.
Modification to the tunnel and re-engineering the linkages is about the most time consuming part of upgrade to overdrive.

Many thanks to Geoff for the helpful link on how to adjust the kickdown.

[David C]

With any luck the picture is attached this time...http://www.bristolcars.info/forums/a...1&d=1697129123

[AndrewA]

Happy Christmas to all readers! The preparation of car for daughters wedding took on a rather manic aspect and I got quite obsessive including getting hubcaps rechromed but it did look stunning and 25 year old daughter did the driving duties without mishap. After various people "having a go" at driving it in the days following the wedding the new shifter became somewhat difficult to get out of Park. In an effort to remedy it myself I managed to break it. A new shifter mechanism turned up very quickly from https://dantesparts.com/ and all is well again.
Fuel smell from the rear is cured - renewed all breather hoses etc, but the problem was a through bulkhead fitting that was leaking slightly.
Also took the opportunity to get the side trim redone...it was held on by a mixture of double sided tape, and clips and over the years it was pulling away in places...mainly where it had been caught by cleaning cloths and so on. I got the local bodyshop to redo it using the correct clips... I gather it was a bit of a performance but it looks excellent.
Have got New Years Day run planned and after that it's going in to get the only remaining bushes on the car that haven't been renewed done. They're the ones on what I'd call the sort of anti tramp bar at the rear.
Hopefully do some serious touring in 2024.
Cheers
Andrew

[Sam410]

Looks great, very smart!

[AndrewA]

Took the opportunity to have remaining niggles dealt with!
When anti tramp bar removed to do bushes, we noticed the mountings on the diff cover weren't great so they've been remade and all is much better at the rear. Also dealt with annoying slight resonance when moving away which turned out to be the gearbox mounting - replacement was a Chrysler Valiant one!
Traced annoying fuel smell at front to incorrectly seated air cleaner and that's now sorted and took the time to double check chassis etc to ensure no incipient corrosion anywhere.
Not content with that, reset the tappets which hadn't been done since heads done a year or so ago and as we were on a roll decided to see what was going on inside the rear suspension units!
Bearings not great on one side and and even less great on the other so they were replaced. After reading extensively on here and SLJ's technical notes and suggestions decided to fill with semi liquid grease and added a grease nipple and a vent so one can fill them without pressure build up.
Needless to say car drives and rides incredibly well now and am looking forward to the serious touring mentioned below!

[AndrewA]

Car just back from France - first time it's been abroad for a long while. Behaved itself impeccably and overall achieved 28.1 MPG which I was delighted with - helped no doubt by Autoroutes and RN's - very little stop start/city driving.
Off to Germany in a few weeks to do Romantic Road and Black Forest.

[David C]

That's great to hear! Really good fuel consumption. I don't imagine you did the whole trip at 56MPH either.