JohnCh

Hasegawa-san, thank you for sharing the link to your blog. There are some stunning photos there. Although not car related, this is one of my favorites. -John

Great to see you using the car as intended! Back road trips are my favorite. Was this an organized trip or did you wing it on your own? 17mpg for a crossflow definitely indicates some richness. Mine used to return about 22-23 overall, and a few mpg higher on freeways. Redondo Beach to King City is pretty far, how many of the 600 miles were back roads vs. freeways? Any photos enroute? BTW you don't need a heater bypass valve. You just need to ditch the heater and save weight -John

Is this the thread? https://usa7s.net/ips/topic/2084-new-zetec-over-my-head-again/

Google will continue to return the old site for a while. Search is much better on the new forum, so please try your searches here first. However, if you do use Google and it takes you to the old site, the fix is generally to update the URL by replacing the letters "vb" that appear immediately after "usa7s.net/" with "ips" That should take you to the correct post in the new forum. Using our most popular thread as an example, google would return the first url and you would want to edit it to the second url https://usa7s.net/vb/topic/9351-ebay-and-craigslist-ads-lots-of-sevens-for-sale https://usa7s.net/ips/topic/9351-ebay-and-craigslist-ads-lots-of-sevens-for-sale -John

The car Knifeyspoony mentions above has a for sale thread on the forum here. It is a great spec. -John

Tom has always been quick to respond. I know there have been recent storms in TX where he lives, so that could be part of the delay. -John

Welcome Dan! We'd love to see a build thread when the kit arrives. What is the lead time these days? Thanks, John

Just a reminder that only Paid Club Members may post a car for sale advertisement on the forum. Registered Users may reply to a thread here, but to keep things fair for Paid Club Members, if that reply is simply a ruse to sell their car, that post will be deleted as per Guideline # 3. Information on becoming a Paid Club Member is available in this Help Guide. Potential buyers seeking a car should post in the Cars Wanted forum which is open to everyone. -John

@Croc started a great thread on this a couple of years ago, and redid that as an article here. I took his advice and went with the Audio-Technica PRO 24-CM and added a Movo WS1 dead cat. Sounds very good. Whatever you buy, experiment with placement to get the balance that sounds best to you. After trying various locations in the cabin and under the bonnet, I eventually settled on placing the microphone next to my left hip. -John

39 seconds of fun. -John

Nope, that's the transmission mount. See bottom photo which shows the alignment between the transmission mounting pad and the fill plug. If your transmission was modified with a drain plug, it would be in the main case which is the low point (painted black in the photos). -John

Mike, glad you like it. The transition has been more seamless than I anticipated, and I had reasonably high expectations. Hopefully others also like the changes. -John

I was curious, so I just called BGH and spoke with Chris. He said they recommend 1.6L. The problem with higher levels comes from extended high speed use which tends to froth the oil, pushing it out the breather and leading to lubrication problems. He had an open case with him and took a measurement. The oil level should be 144mm below the top of the case. -John

I've just updated the Downloads page with the above instructions. It took about 30 seconds. This forum is sooooo much better than vBulletin. -John

@wemtd please see bullet 5 of my original post in this thread. -John

Great story! Can you imagine how quickly mom and dad would be in jail and the kids would be in foster care if they tried that today? Ah, progress... -John

We uploaded several Type-9 documents, including a service manual. Take a look through those to see if you can make sense of it. I "think" it may simply be a riveted locating pin. https://usa7s.net/ips/files/category/31-gearbox/ -John

The fluid level changed in the later boxes to 1.6L. As I recall that was to reduce frothing so early boxes can also run that amount, but someone here may be able to provide a definitive answer. Given you are unlikely to remove all the old oil (the case is packed with gears, so I wouldn't rely on being able to see the bottom) I would get a piece of wire, run it outside the box to the bottom of the fill hole to get a measurement to the top of the case. Then get a longer piece of wire to use as a temporary dipstick and use the measurement from the first wire to mark a full line. Before you undertake this, I would be certain you have sufficient room to maneuver down there. -John

I remember reading a write up about this many years ago. As I recall the person welded a bung on the front corner of the cover plate and added a threaded dipstick. If you have room to remove the cover plate, that's certainly an option. You may need to order a replacement gasket and scrape off old sealant though. -John

Today was not a Wellness Blat per se. It was more like a When Life Throws You Lemons Blat. Our local electrical utility had an oops moment that took out power for 1500 people starting around 10am this morning. Given the weather was beautiful and I needed to drive a few miles to get strong enough cell reception for reliable data transfer, I blatted. -John

Just had another thought. It's not clear from the photo how the frame tube is positioned over the plug in the vertical plane. Is it possible to disconnect the engine and transmission mounts and lower or raise the engine trans assembly just a bit so that the tube is no longer directly over the plug? -John

It's hard to state if this would work from the picture, but if I was committed to removing the plug with the transmission still in the car, I'd be tempted to do the following: Cut access hole, sized to accept an off-the-shelf plastic or rubber plug, as close as possible to the frame tube Get square stock the appropriate size, then using a grinder, create a ball end that will allow you to insert it into the plug at an angle. Something like this hex key Assuming that works, you may still struggle to remove the plug in the available space. I don't recall the length of the plug, but even if it is shorter than the gap, it may need to be loose enough at some point that you can unscrew the last bit with your fingers grasping the exposed threads. Do you know how long it's been since the fluid was changed or the engine/trans was out of the car? -John