My mum burnt the clutch out on her Chevette estate by following a heard of cows up a steep hill, guess who had to fix it, I have an idea she actually did it twice!
Jim
You asked for it
I will tell you first about my wife Christine's experience with some of the diesel conversions I have done, this was when we were first married and lived in Kent. One of the first was a Perkins 4/99 engine into a woody Oxford estate, don't see them very often now, like a big Morris 1000 Traveller.I did the conversion OK but the gearbox had no reverse. She worked at a Rootes garage in Sevenoaks at the time, she managed with it most of the time but she couldn't park it where she was able to drive out at the garage, so a couple of the blokes that worked there would push it out for her every day. I did repair it eventually - but where's the fun in that.
Another after we came down here was I think a Farina Oxford estate, these Perkins engines had a banjo fitting on top of the injectors for the leak off pipes, these kept coming loose, must have been the vibration I suppose. So Christine carried a 7//16th spanner in the glove box to use when she smelt hot diesel. Someone ad nicked it one day so she went into a garage in Lyme Regis to borrow one, she was met with incredulity and the mechanic came out and tightened them.
I think it was this car that I had fitted with an SU pump in a compartment under the under the rear floor, every now and again it would stop working and the engine would start to die, she found that if she drove over a manhole cover it would start working again, she became quite adept at this. So if you ever saw her swerving all over the road - you know why.
One final account. I fitted a 4/108 in a Viva, strangely even though it was the smallest car I converted it was the easiest, practically everything was in the right place, I didn't even have to make a new gearbox crossmember, just turned it round the other way and it fitted perfectly. I did however have to modify the gearchange to get it to line up with the hole for the gear-lever, something went wrong with it and you had to use a screwdriver to get it to come out of gear, so she dutifully carried one round with her, I showed her what to do but she was getting quite used to these quirks now.
Peter
This would have been in the mid '60's. The car was a Morris Oxford 'woody' estate and I had to source the parts myself. I found a 4/99 engine easily enough but there were a number of options available for the ancillaries as they were fitted in to several of different vehicles.
Thinking outside of the box is better than sitting in a dark one.