The horse doesn't care. He's a retired thoroughbred racehorse (that
only won one race, and was castrated as a consequence). His name is
Feliche Cobleanos, which is Spanish for "Happy Birthday". Ideally, he
should be pulled by a Mexican vehicle, but Mexico is not well know for
making large vehicles.
He (and the TR6) now get towed by an Isuzu Trooper (3.5 litre), but it
is really a bit small. Thank goodness for electric trailer brakes!
As far as the helicoil cure, the problem is that there are only three
turns of thread in the head for the spark plug. That part of the head
is damn near sheet metal, and aluminum at that! It is LESS THAN 1/4
inch thick. Ford blames the spark plugs, which are not covered under
warranty, even though the threads on the plugs are fine- it is the
threads in the head that fail. And, this has the coil-over-plug
design, so when a plug blows out, it messes up other things!
So, lessee- the exploding Pinto, the Firestone tire fiasco (where Ford
and Firestone blamed each other, but no one took responsibility), and
now the defective heads? There have been 11,000 documented head
failures in the Triton V-8 and the V-10, and Ford insists nothing is
wrong. Screw 'em!
Enough of my rant, but thanks for all the suggestions.
Kevin
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