Alistair P

Fair enough , that is your opinion. IMHO however, you only have to scratch the surface by reading the first post of the second link which I cited in my original post and then get into the ensuing discussion to see where I could have got this idea, however wrong you might consider it. What you can't argue about however, if you read the posts at the two links together, is that one could be forgiven for feeling that that you are damned if you do and damned if you don't by some people who should know better, whichever approach you choose to go for.

Based on the sellers geographic location (Stoke on Trent) and a quick Google search, the company responsible for that cage may well be "FJT Welding and Fabrication" of Stoke On Trent. There are a couple of other relevant threads running on this forum at the moment, not least of all http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopi...hl=modification but also http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopi...hl=modification I think that everything said at the first reference pretty much applies here; I wonder where the liability would lie if you did put the thing on its roof and those welds just fell apart.... The absence of a centre upright behind the driver's door is also pretty surprising. The reason that I bring up the second reference is that I have noticed a tendency on this forum for many of those with a great deal of experience at building and modifying their own vehicles for competition, or 'serious' off-road use only, (i.e. mud plugging at pay to play sites / act as extras vehicles in Mad Max (lets face it, some of these vehicles, whilst optimised with one purpose in mind, are seriously ugly trucks)), to mock the attempts of those with a lot less experience to build capable weekend off roaders using the "bolt on" approach of off-the-shelf products from the range of suppliers (yes, including our old favourite, Scorpion). The prevailing attitude seems to be that unless you can 'fab' your own parts, or at the very least go to a local fabricator to make a custom part for you, you are in some way a lesser mortal compared to the gods who can. This attitude I might add puts an awful lot of people off membership of certain LR clubs - but that's another thread.... Whilst I do find it 'surprising' that this owner didn't just get himself a Camel spec cage from Safety Devices and bolt it in (tried, tested, better looking, more subtle and significantly cheaper) I don't think it particularly fair that those who would in one breath mock his efforts to improve the off road capability of his vehicle by using a lot of off-the-shelf bolt-on kit are apparently so eager in the next breath to turn around and lambaste his efforts with 'custom' work even if (as in this case) they are undoubtedly a complete abortion. We all have to start somewhere, and part of his learning experience would be to put his truck on its roof for the first time and find out the hard way that whoever built that cage was in fact a monkey. This would ensure that he did it right the second time on his next project. This is how humans learn. What is more unfortunate is that someone has just bid £3,500 on that particular auction for a base vehicle which can't be worth much more than £1500 with the panel damage.... perhaps the buyer intends to cut the cage off and put a proper one on? Has anyone got any shining examples of other work that FJT has produced?

I can't really see the problem with the golf club concept. After all, if a pair of police marksmen can blow away a Scottish DIY enthusiast walking home from the pub with a table leg (which he had just turned up on a lathe) under his arm, and subsequently have the nerve to claim that they thought he was an Irish terrorist with a shotgun under his arm, then in theory you should be able to get away with just about anything by claiming self defence. In reality no jury is ever going to convict a householder for clobbering an intruder in the night with a golf club; short of doing a "Tony Martin" (in the back with an unlicensed weapon whilst the Pikey was running away) you can (despite what the Daily Mail would have you believe) actually under UK law take extremely robust action in self defence. Just make sure that there are no witnesses.

Brendan You are of course absolutely correct from a technical point of view. I accept that the vehicle in question could have been perfect when last presented at the MOT up to a hypothetical 363 days earlier. Based on news reporting (always dangerous I know) however, there seemed however to be so much wrong with the vehicle in question that frankly it strains credibility that it all went that badly wrong in the intervening time. Sounds to me like that sort of catalogue of errors must have taken some time to put together....

Dave I take your point with your example of the knock off Rolex, but you have taken my original post to the logical extreme which is unrepresentative in the Scorpion vs Equipe context - as well you know. I also think that you are the first person I have met who would describe Scorpion as 'cheap'. Yes, of course a knock off 'rolex' from china will not be the same as the original article. No argument there. The reality is that if you placed a knock off rolex next to the real thing and picked it up you would be able to tell the difference immediately. Stick it in 100m depth of water and you definitely would when the former implodes. I have not feelings one way or the other about Scorpion's kit (although I do agree entirely with everything which has been said elsewhere on this thread about the morality of going bankrupt to clear your debts before re-opening under a very similar name (and screwing your suppliers over in the process)) , but that's a different question. For the purposes of this discussion, unless someone gives me evidence to the contrary, I feel that you would be extremely hard pushed to visually tell any difference between a Scorpion Extreme set up and an Equipe one. Performance-wise there seems to be little difference as well as far as I can see. If anything the Scorpion dislocating shock mounts seem somewhat more elegant. My point is that the Scorpion kit is under half the price of the Equipe one, seems to do the same job to the same standard and is made by a UK company. This is simply not the same as a fake rolex from China. An awfully large number of trucks (not including mine I might add) seem to be running with the Scorpion set up, so evidently the consensus of opinion out there (if not in this forum) is that the stuff works perfectly well and is better value than the hugely overpriced Equipe.

It strikes me that - in common with much of what passes for 'legislation' introduced by this 'government' over the last 10 years - there would be nothing to be gained by attempting to tighten up this area; as there is ample existing legislation covering everything discussed here already. Further, you simply can't legislate for crass stupididy on the basis of what someone might possibly do in every possible situation at some hypothetical point in the future. For example: 1. If your car doesn't stop straight because it has different sized calipers front right and left, it will fail the MOT - period. Quite how the vehicle in question passed its MOT on this failure point alone is beyond me. Similarly, if the steering was genuinely as vague as has been reported, something must have been mechanically wrong (tracking, PAS box, worn bushes?) which also should have been an MOT failure. Fitting a roll cage on top of a 2" suspension lift simply doesn't do that on its own. On both these points the vehicle in question shouldn't have been on the road in the first place. With this in mind it seems to me that the MOT testing station was complicit in the situation and passed a vehicle that it shouldn't have done. This gives the lie to the idea that 'qualified' persons will always (or even generally) do a better job than an 'enthusiast'. The reality is that I am 'an enthusiast' and will almost invariably do a better job on my vehicle than most of the 'qualified' garage mechanics I have encountered. Things I can't do / don't want to touch, (e.g. welding!) I leave to someone who I trust. 2. If you are driving like a prat (60mph along a narrow road with a loose surface, where oncoming slow moving traffic is towing trailers) and you kill someone, you may well be charged with causing death by dangerous driving. In this case the modifications to the vehicle, and indeed the make of the vehicle itself, were irrelevant - essentially a side show for the Daily Mail to hysterically scream 'Frankenstine 4x4' over and some rentamouth copper to rant at. The reality is that in the same circumstances of p*ss poor driving, he would have had the same charges levelled at him if his land rover had been brand new factory standard or if indeed he had been driving a characterless eurobubble. 3. The failure of the trailing arm welds didn't, as I understand it from the press reporting, cause the accident. The welds failed when the car decended the bank at speed and subjected the arms to forces greater than they would ever have been subjected to in normal operation on the road - or indeegreenlaning off of it. Taken to its logical conculsion, you might as well say that every car should be engineered so that no part of it will ever fail in any extreme situation. This is clearly fatuous; the reality is that even factory trailing arms might have failed in the same situation but still not contributed to the crash itself. I think what I object to the most over all this, is the fact that my vehicle could also be described in court as a 'Frankenstine' combination of 5 vehicles: the original (1), new engine (2), recon gearbox (3), recon back axle (4), all the other bits I have stuck on it (5). Personally I call it a model of environmental sustainability and recycling.... The cynic in me thinks that the only reason that the government might want to ban 'amatures' from working on their own vehicles is that £40 to 120 an hour in labour charges at a 'authorised' (read + a charge to get 'authorised') garage x lots of 5 hour jobs x lots of garages x lots of cars = a huge great wedge of coporation tax at 40% and income tax at 40% to enable the chancellor to freely p*iss more of our money away on Lulabors next irrelevant lost cause.

My condolences I hope that you get it back. I know in this case it is shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, however I have one of these hardwired in a waterproof plastic box with back up battery, somewhere not very obvious in my disco. http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=99114 Cost £125 + a pay as you go sim. If someone does nick my truck I then have two options. After the device txts me with the lat / long, I can either paste the position into google maps and find exactly where the truck is before giving the address to the police. Alternatively I can pop round myself with an iron bar and resolve the issue in the middle of the night when the little f*cker is least expecting it... Similar items are available on ebay which additionally have wiring for a 'function' signal, i.e. you can wire it so that you send a message to the device and tell it to trip the cars imobiliser. Game over. Some also let you dial into the phone and hear what is going on in the background without the phone ringing out. Good for evidence gathering if you feel inclined, and at the very least you can listen to the oiks conversation immediately after you have remotely killed the trucks ignition whilst they are on the motorway 5 miles from the nearest exit Worth adding to any truck in my view. Alistair

All You may be interested to know that two days ago I visited the new Scorpion shop front in Cheshunt. It isn't formally open yet as it is still being fitted out internally and externally (name boards aren't yet up and the only way you would know what the shop is is by peering through the security screen). In the time I was there the telephone never stopped ringing with enquiries and there was one mail order sale in addition to mine over the counter. The mail order element of the operation appears relatively healthy. The stock warehouse is now located in an idustrial estate in potters bar. When I poked my head inside it seemed chaotic (due to the recent transfer of stock from one location to another) but otherwise well stocked. I hate to be the one dissenting voice in what appears to be the the Scrap Iron Depreciation Society, however I have had kit off of them several times in the past and never had any problems whatsoever with the equipment or delivery. My only observation is that they have on occasion given the impression over the phone that they are less than willing to waste time answering questions about their kit.... although were more than enthusiastic about taking my money. I strongly suspect that this largely because they take the view that their kit has historically been so heavily pushed in all the Land Rover magazines that I should be able to read the published article to find the answer I need, without bothering them with 'stupid' questions. Whilst you could put this down to 'poor customer service' perhaps if the LR magazines stop collectively acting like the marketing and propoganda arm of Scorpion Racing in a manner which is borderline on counter-competitive, that company will actually have to work on its customer service a bit harder. It might also mean that the magazines cover the full range of products available from smaller companies which are often better quality and much less expensive. The other criticism of Scorpion appears to be that they have nicked other people's ideas e.g. the X Brake and Equipe product line. I can see the irritation (e.g. from X Eng) if your product which you have worked hard to develop is knocked off by someone else. The flip side of the coin however is that a bit of competition keeps the cost of product down for the consumer - i.e. you and me. If you need an example of this look at the vastly - and some might say unjustifiably and even ridicuously - expensive Equipe product line. How this company survives with these prices (£550 for their rear A frame?!) is completely beyond me, hoever If a UK company can indiginously produce the same kit at a more moderate price then ultimately it is OK with me. Alistair

Ben Before you do anything else, try this: Grub around in your drivers foot well (drop the pannel under the steering wheel down) and find the diagnostic socket which the dealer uses to pug the fault code reader into. It is is often taped or cable tied onto the loom. If you can't find it let me know and I will photograph mine and post it. It will have three wires going into it and a blanking plug inserted into the socket. The blanking plug will in turn have a single wire coming out of it which is taken back to the wiring side of the socket. If this plug/socket and jumper lead arrangement is not properly connected (in effect cross connecting two of the three wires properly), your engine will exhibit all the symptoms you are describing and run like a bag of the proverbial at idle. This is because the ECU thinks it has a fault code reader attached - and doesn't - which screws up the high / low logic inputs to two of the pins into the ECU. You may find that some plonker in the garage hasn't replaced this blanking plug properly last time they pluged in the fault code reader! Then strip down the plug and socket and clean up any surface corrosion on the surface of the pins with a fine emery paper. Crimp the female connectors slightly to ensure a good connection. Reassemble and reconnect. Disconnect the battery for 30 seconds. Reconnect battery and restart. Very simple but not a lot of people know about this one. I would do all this anyway however because it may be that you have this fault intermittently which is compounding something else and making that difficult to diagnose. Alistair

Concur with Nige ref overfueling being the problem and with his list of things to check, particularly the CTS. You might want to read the article at the following link http://www.britishv8.org/Articles/Rover-14CUX-EFI.htm as it contains a useful description of the main components making up the hotwire injection system. Some other things you should check are as follows: 1. What milage has it done? As A K reg I am guessing in excess of 100K. Have a look at the cam (and the valves and valve seats whilst you are at it) and see if you have rounded lobes on the cam. It could well be that if the engine hasn't ever had a rebuild. If this is the case, your cam shaft will be knackered which could result in these problems, particularly if, as you seem to indicate, the problem apparantly diminishes when the engine is hot. The Rover V8 has an amazing ability to carry on just about working with an inconceivable amount of cam wear, and replacing a worn cam will greatly improve fuel economy and performance. 2. Throttle position sensor. This is one of the most common failure points (the wiper arm on the resistance track inside gets knackered) and is easy to diagnose and (relatively) cheap to replace. See the advice at http://www.v8engines.com/carbs-2.htm#setting-up for a simple resistance check to see if your throttle pot and air mass meter have the right resistances and operation. 3. What is making the alarm bells go off for me is that (like my modified Disco V8) you say that your car has no cats Assuming your vehicle was UK market (and the age related plate is correct), it definately would have done when it was built. This means that someone has stuck an aftermarket exhaust on it with the cats removed, e.g. the performance exhausts supplied by Rimmer Bros. This is Not a legal problem as yours is a K reg and it only became a legal requirement for cars to have cats from late 94 onwards. Importantly, what you don't mention is whether or not you still have lambda sensors fitted to both the exhaust down pipes. Do you have lambda sensors fitted? Your vehicle would have originally had lambda sensors fitted from build. It does not however strictly need them to run in that it will run without them... if however they have simply been removed without further modifications to the wiring loom, it could make your engine run very rich. I would also expect your 'check engine' light (orange light top left of dashbord display) to be on registering a fault. Is this check engine light on? (Bear in mind when you disconnect the vehicles battery you will reset this light and it may not come back on again until the car has been run some miles on the road). If it is on, you need to get the fault code read as this will almost certainly indicate what the problem is. In any event, a 'Tune Resistor' was originally specified in the wire harness so that one ECU could serve multiple vehicle markets. (Multiple computer programs could be stored within the ECU, and the ECU could "decide" which one to use based on what resistance it sensed.) One leg of the Tune Resister was wired to terminal 5 of the ECU, and the other leg was spliced to ground. If your vehicle originally had lambda sensors, it would originally have had a White tune resistor (3900 Ohms USA and European vehicles with catalytic converter). In the unlikely event that your vehicle cam from the factory without lambda sensors, it would have had a Green tune resistor (470 Ohms UK and European vehicles without catalytic converters) or alternatively a Yellow (910 Ohms Saudi vehicles (without catalytic converters)). If the vehicle is a 'grey market import', e.g. from Japan, it may have a Red tune resistor (180 Ohms Australia and "the rest of the world). What you need to check is the colour / resistance of the tune resistor. If you have no lambda sensors fitted and a green tune resistor, you are running correctly and the check engine light will remain off. If you however have a white resistor and no lambda sensors then your ECU is applying the wrong fuel maps and your check engine light should come on after a period of running. Go and buy a green resistor from your local dealer and swap it. 4. Are all your spark plugs coaking up equally? If not, then it could be that you have one or more knackered fuel injectors which may be sticking open. You can get these ultrasonically cleaned relatively cheaply to improve the fuel flow through them. Alistair