cackshifter

Have you tried tightening them? Sometimes that loosens things or they shear. Either way you are back in business. If they move at all, soak with plusgas and take your time, go back and forth. Or just cut the bracket off to release the body and deal with it when you can get at it. If you can I'd give it a good jetwash to get things as clean as possible too. We all hit these kind of obstacles!!

And one problem with heat pumps is they have a coefficient of performance of about 3 max ( they may claim more but thermodynamics being what it is...) So if you currently have a 24kW boiler, you'd need around 8kW electricity input to run the heat pump to get the same out. If you use it say to supplement other heating it may be a better proposition, as heat pumps like to warm large volumes of air slightly as opposed to heating small volumes of water massively. It looks like water really needs to be heated by solar, either directly or electrically to get hot enough to avoid bugs living in it.

We are looking at solar and a battery. If you want to use excess to heat water there are gizmos that power your immersion heater when you have excess power, IE when it senses you are powering the grid. Re insulation, a few years back we redid our roof. You are supposed if you do to insulate to a U value of 1.8, but are excused that if you are only doing up to half the roof. Of course most people ignore that and just replace the whole roof as it was. However I found a roof felt that gives really good insulation from Web Dynamics, together with 60mm Kingspan between the rafters. The new tiles were raised slightly to allow air between tiles and felt, so we used flatter tiles. Result! U value of 1.8 (already 100mm fibreglass Inthe loft) and the roof is now 'warm' rather than 'cold'. That has also made it more comfortable in summer. Our gas usage went from 2746 cu.m in 2013-14 to 1850 2021-22. So there may be differences in temp in those years, but you could feel the difference. The loft is warm and dry too, in summer only slightly warmer than upstairs, whereas it used to be like an oven. That is something that can be done quite quickly and easily without lots of internal disturbance.

I have 97 90 and 110. They take different rear pads. I think the 90 rear pistons are 41mm, the 110 are 46mm. I think the 110 rear discs are the same as solid fronts, the 90 discs are different. The fronts are identical, but the 90 has a magic valve in the line to the rear.

Or maybe just a blob of weld on the last thread of the current plug to stop you going too far..

That's a nice idea. But (ignoring the battery dev for a moment) say you need 180Kwh to do 500 miles.... And you want to charge in say 12 hours - the best you can get from a home charger is 7.5Kw on a single phase supply. So the most you can charge is 90Kwh in 12 hours. So... to do better you need 3 phase, which is of course technically very possible, but putting it into all homes... look how long it's taken to get smart meters rolled out.

You'd think we'd have learned from phones... but no

If the country seriously wants to get off gas as a fuel it needs to pause or slow down the push to EVs. It's too much to do at all once. It's too much investment, too much demand on the grid and generation capacity. EVs work well for some folk, but not yet everyone. And we don't see many electric trucks. Hydrogen is currently a joke - it's quite dangerous and has to be produced from either cracking methane (gas again) or electrolysis (generation again) . We will still need gas as a chemical feedstock, so using it for heating etc is best avoided now. According to Gridwatch just now gas is still currently (no pun intended) producing 46% of electricity. It is normally around half, maybe a bit less. Wind is doing well today but still less than 20%. It seems pointless to me to push towards increasing the use of electricity by EVs when we just don't have the capacity to supply them, and we are trying to get off gas heating as well.

As you say, ...if they can get enough chargers...maybe you'll know your car is charged while having your brew as the lights go bright. If you think how many cars fill with fuel at a motorway over 30 minutes you have some idea of the number of chargers needed. Then work out the electrical load of all those chargers. I just don't see there is enough generation or grid capacity now or in even the medium term without some serious investment, and I think that will hold things back.

You'll probably get a named space in the car park though.

Before you do that just remember queue times and parking costs at A & E....

Ok, straw grasping I admit but years back I had a Hillman Avenger which had a stiff gear change. I was told the reason was part of the selector mechanism slid into a blind hole, and air and oil were trapped behind. The fix was to grind a small flat on the shaft so as the shaft slid in, the air and oil could escape. But before the fix could happen the car was written off,so I never knew if would have worked. Could there be something like that going on, it felt like you were pushing against a damper?

It was good to be rid of the crossmember(thrilled I didn't have to post it); I am pleased it has gone to a good home, but so sorry it took such an effort and expense to loosen the old chassis bits but when I attached it the last thing I wanted was for it to come detached. Still it looks like persistence pays. The bits that rusted were I think anti roll bar brackets that had been on the old crossmember and were needed on the new for the towbar stays so I I transplanted them. They weren't galved of course.

...which is what you might expect if your oil is cooler than 100 deg C.

Just a word of caution, my 90 passed an MOT easily with some pistons in the front calipers seized. The easiest way to tell is take the pads out and see if the pistons slip back reasonably easily. I was surprised it had passed, when I went to change the pads soon after and it was very difficult to push the pistons back, that in turn led to caliper rebuilds. Ages back I put on a new Wabco pump and it managed .8 bar of vacuum. However, it died as they do, and the Unipart replacement managed .6 bar,all measured with a gauge and the servo disconnected. The very original knackered Wabco only did .3 bar.

So going for expediency, if the cam bearing has moved, is it possible to just put it back loctited, IE no need for new bearings and reaming. Yes I know it would be a dirty fix, but if the rest is ok then that gives a good engine.

Pm sent

I have a galved and Jotun painted one spare off a 300tdi. You are welcome to it. There are still bits of chassis attached, but a bit of fettling....

If you use a knife, put a jubliee clip on as a guide, maybe backed with tape to stop it sliding

If you take the body off whole, you can inspect the bulkhead closely, and swap or refurbish it while the body is off. If yours is in good shape why not get it blasted and galved rather than buy a new one if you can spare the time.

If doing just body off, it's worth noting bits of body that are hard to get to with the body on, and maybe give them some TLC while you can, but things always take more time and money than you think. Thinking things like 110 csw cross member.

After that lot I think I'd be wondering what was wrong if the steering wheel still aligned. Though note comments in the manual about tightening bolts with the vehicle on the ground after it has settled.

Maybe there's a missing bypass, sometimes the thermostat doesn't open because the water round it isn't hot enough, perhaps because the circulation isn't past the stat. I've no idea what your system is like, that could be complete tosh for you, but might be worth checking how hot does the thermostat get? And is it the correct sort, some blank a bypass as they open, or have a jiggle pin to let air out.

Following discovery of a throttle spindle fuel leak, I decided to get the pump overhauled at Diesel Bob's. I asked what the timing was set to and they said it was set by machine, weren't sure without looking it up. I have had it back for a couple of weeks and thought I would get round to fitting it. I am changing the timing belt at the same time, so as the pump was just bolted to the timing case and very accessible and the injector pipes were off I thought I'd look at the timing with a dial gauge. So I set up a dial gauge in the back of the pump. I have 2 timing pins, but was using initially a Chinese one. When I fitted the pin I realised there was a degree of slop, so took a reading first with the pump drive as far ACW (anticlockwise) as it would go, ie in it's natural position, then tried applying a bit of CW(clockwise pressure) to remove any slop between the pin and the pump drive boss with a ring spanner on the pump spindle nut. So that produced readings of lift of 1.22mm (ACW) to 1.47mm(CW). I also have a Bergen pin which is a much tighter fit; corresponding figures are 1.33mm (ACW), 1.40mm(CW, which is the official setting in the manual with EGR) So I checked the pin diameters, the Chinese one was 9.22mm, the Bergen one 9.46mm. There is quite a variation, the pin fit obviously can make a significant difference to the timing. Whether that matters hugely is of course debatable. But generally folk seem to think some advance can improve the running, so not having what you expect might matter. Incidentally I tried inserting a used 9mm drill bit; that produced figures of 1.18mm(ACW) and 1.58mm(CW), and a new 23/64 bit was virtually the same.

The problems with manifold nuts is that they either won't come undone at all or perversely they come undone by themselves. I like double brass nuts if possible for that reason