FINDING AND USING OUR TECHNICAL ARTICLES
The Globe Magazine, October 2022
We have several new members, and some existing members, undertaking significant amounts of work on their cars at the moment. With that in mind, it seems like a good time to remind everyone about the extensive list of previously published articles of technical guidance – how to find them and where you can download them.
Important note: Please be very cautious when working on or fitting any item to your car, unless you take full responsibility for what you’re doing, and you have the necessary level of skill and expertise to be sure that the work you undertake on your car leaves it safe and roadworthy. If in doubt, have work done by a properly-qualified professional. Any accounts in the GLOBE are the experiences of members, sharing ideas, not offering guidance on what might or might not need doing on your particular car.
Even Bob’s expert technical guidance needs to be accurately interpreted and applied. He always follows the official information given in the Workshop Manual, with additions bringing the information up-to-date where necessary – after all, when the manual was written they had no idea we would have the possibility of using electronic ignition timing or LED lights, that we might be running on unleaded petrol with added ethanol, or even that we might have radial-ply tyres available. However, for example: my own car at the moment is backfiring erratically. If I apply Bob’s guidance from his advice on fitting an electronic ignition system, that’s all well and good – provided I have correctly identified the problem. It might be something else altogether. Do take care!
Where to find our past articles
If you are a long-time member and you have saved all your past Globes, you already have these; but you still need to find when the article you need was published. It’s very time-consuming and frustrating having to search through a stack of copies – “I know I saw it somewhere – I think it was before we moved – I bet it’s in that one edition that went missing…” (If you do NOT have an extensive collection of past Globes, but you would like to do so, please take a look in the ‘For Sale and Wanted’ pages because there are two sets of past Globe collections on offer, free of charge.) They make a fascinating collection, not only for the technical content – some of the accounts are truly amazing. If you have not read John Bates’ tour of French scrapyards and battlefields from 1975, published in October 2017, or John Alldridge’s drive from Manchester to Karachi, or the two cars which took part in the Monte Carlo Rally, or Graeme Johnson’s full restoration of a skeletal wreck, taking courses to teach himself the skills as he went – well, you should.
How to use the ARTICLES INDEX
Online, there is a Google Spreadsheet which is available to be used by anyone. You can find it here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/194cPyWPd4bjhwZw_Zk7UVVMpA7iVLNslSMA5BVQtfY/edit?usp=sharing
– or email the Editor to send you a link.
The spreadsheet lists all the past Globe articles from 1975 to the present day, with keywords, and in categories. All cars mentioned are also listed, so you might like to search for your own and see if it has been featured. (We regret that there are gaps in the spreadsheet, notably from 2007 – 2012, which we are still working on, but we hope these will be completed before too long.)
You can find articles of interest by using a SEARCH – perhaps for ‘restoration’ or ‘overdrive’ or ‘SYC 911’ or whatever topic you need – or by clicking a column header to bring all the articles in one category to the top of the list.
Once you know the edition of the Globe you need, all the Globes from 2012 to the present are available to download as PDF files from our website; or if the article is from an earlier edition, email the Editor and request it.
Taken from the Google Spreadsheet, here is a selection of the technical articles we have published since April 2012 (the date from which the back-copies are available online for downloading).