steam cleaning engines,

it is worth cleaning out occasionally. just buy a cheapy set of sockets with torx, you might even find some in a pound shop, if you already have some diddy quarter drive sockets there is usually an equivalent that will be ok for torx.

If anyone else is thinking of doing this, you can get 'em half price by buying the Pertronix version (identical even down to the packaging) from the US. Do a search on Retro Rockets for the website. They take Paypal and sent mine from their UK warehouse so I didn't even have to pay duty.

Just as well. I've bought a few things from the US and noticed just recently that firms I've bought from before now only use a courier system for carriage. Which means something like $60 even for a tiny light item. I got round it by having it sent to a US address then posted to me.

In message , MrCheerful writes

Thanks, I'll give it a go. 'Only' 80k miles on her, but there might well be something to muck out. Changed the crankcase breather filter the other day and that was practically black, as well as nearly clogged.

Worse than that on mine - the dizzy used some sort of solid carbon bush bearing moulded into the shaft. When it got old, it cracked. When it cracked enough, it disintegrated.

No fix for it except a complete new dizzy. Surprisingly, spares of the dizzies ran out quite quickly after they stopped making them...

In message , MrCheerful writes

I'd tried 6mm & 7mm plain sockets. but neither fitted. My old 1/4" were both chewed up (too soft) but a new plain 1/4" I'd just bought fitted perfectly.

Pitted contacts and a bit of brass dust inside. Cleaned up and she's still running fine.