discomikey

interesting. you've got , me intrigued as to why you would need to run one in reverse, you're not rear engined are you? Hope to see you out on the track next year then. Me and a mate run a silver tomcat at the moment and I'm just wrapping up the design of a new from that we hope to complete in time for the start of the season.

I did pay a price though. I managed to give ,myself a black eye on my right eye by dropping the half full fuel tank onto my face, I got arc eye bad in both eyes from a moment of stupidity, and had a trip to the emergency room 2 days later for the nice nurse to dig some steel out of my left eye with a needle. Not nice! I was wearing glasses too ! Oh, and I sliced 2 fingers with the grinder

To be fair a lot of the credit has to go to my machine! If I had used my old 150 a SIP welder it might have looked half as good. And I've learned the hard way that just trying to get away with a small patch is never going to get the best results you really do need to cut right back to solid steel. And clean it really well!

Finally finished. You'll have to forgive the poor workmanship on the last photo.. I was in a rush to get done at this point. Just need to paint it all and reinstall the tank now.

It's quite a common thing for the D2 to rot badly in this area. It's down to the design of the 4 internal stiffeners which trap moisture and then they flake from the inside out and burst open. Thanks. It's not my best but then again it's not exactly clean new steel either.

Most important thing to do is to remove the pump and to fit an idler pulley in its place. The rest of the system will just sit there and not really give any problems but running the pump on the engine dry is a very bad idea.. it will leave you stranded with no water pump, power steering and charging system one day. It's preferable to remove everything and fit standard anti roll bars in place, and find someone with a nanocom who can tell the BCU that the car isn't fitted with ACE.

Lucky I enjoy welding isn't it ? after writing off my green 51 plate d2 I acquired a rather smart looking red one. Not quite so tidy underneath! I bought it with the thinking that my forte is not bodywork but I can squeeze the odd pidgoen here and there. Bottom, inside and top skins are all knackered on the left hand side and the inside skin wants work on the right hand side. Ran out of 1.0mm mig wire though so only managed to get half the left hand side done so far.

As Chris says, D2 axles are a decent cheap (ish) upgrade whilst still keeping LR axles. They do get bent in hard competition environment especially if your suspension isn't set up right. For low speed stuff like trialling I can't see this being a problem though. And they are so much nicer to service too!

He plans to brace back to the radius arm mount. should be a fairly strong setup really. so long as it's done right with an attention to the forces involved etc.

Interesting. I, for one, love my Oxford machine, and my esab one at work. Couple of weeks ago I had my first ever go at tig welding, that was with a 160a R-Tech machine. Having never heard of them before I was dubious, but I have to say I was super impressed with my first attempt at both Ali and mild steel after 10 mins. I put this success down to the machine not the driver ?

Material wise, you won't gain much by going too exotic. BS EN 10025 S355 will be more than enough providing you design it correctly. - remember, standard chassis is only basic grade mild. You can make your structure as strong and stiff as possible but it's a lost caus if the structure it is attached to is made of cheese/a weak design Would be worth ringing up Richards and asking them if there are crush plates in these holes. It is a must for anything as critical as this! Remember, (granny sucking eggs I know but..) thick flat plate is not stiff, and will fatigue much worse than a thinner plate which is shaped to increase stiffness. Use soft edges wherever possible on the weld detail. Start simple when you actually get round to designing it, get the structure right and then lightweight it, rather than trying to get fancy straight away. I wouldnt necisarrily say calculate the forces involved because they are a complete unknown, but take the basic concept and draw arrows along where you think the forces will travel then you will know what isn't stiff enough/is too stiff/where cutouts can be made. will be happy to offer my opinion and advice wherever required, as you already know.

Really nice to see the kind words on here! I was one of the few people lucky enough to work for him. He was as genuine as poeple say. I owe my career to him and he genuinely was, no IS a hero to me.. we will endeavour to make sure his legacy continues and keeps the reputation that he built. Tragic loss!

The only experience I've had with Lincoln mig welders is one my mate has, about 400a synergic wire feed etc. I don't get on with it, often end up maxing out the wire feed adjustment on it (what adjustment you have) you can weld well with it but you have to be on the ball. That's a 3ph machine and my single phase Oxford welds as smooth as any 3ph machine (esab machines at work are a good comparison) Oxford has a manual wire feed which I prefer and get on well with. I was was doing some spray arc transfer the other day, kept tripping my power supply and when I was done I had an mb36 torch smoking. Welder never missed a beat though. Still super impressed!!! if you don't know what spray arc transfer is, google it. It's a much hotter process than standard short circuit mig!

In my eyes it already has done! It's just basically replaced 3 welders in one hit for me. It's duty cycle is impressive. I was lucky enough to borrow this exact model for welding a steel floor into a 30ft bale trailer. Laid about 2000" of weld within one day never skipped a beat.

Gutted about the distance between you and the project! The new project looks like it has had an erm... "interesting" past Will be looking forward to updates.

... to take this smug grin off my face? In all seriousness.. i spent a loooooooong time researching the best value proffessional large migs available and kept circling back to Oxford for their reputation, price, and 20 year parts availability promise. So I bit the bullet and splashed the cash about 2 weeks ago when our farm mower fell apart and my trusty topmig 150 wasn't up to the job. Wish I had upgraded sooner. I've used esab, migatronic, kemppi, thermal arc, and all the usual pro migs. This is up there with the best and at almost half the price! And the bonus is its single phase!

for big power on a big gun.. milwaukee or ingersoll rand win hands down for what i do, mainly nut running. i have a Makita DTW281 with the later lithium ion batteries. the numbers arent that impressive but it will tiddle land rover wheel nuts and its a god send as a nut runner. its a real compact body, the only complaint i have is that i wanted one with a 3/8" square drive, this has 1/2" square drive. it tinkles on snap-on guns for breakfast and the batteries will last for yonks. approx 4x snap-on or Hitachi charges (when compared fitted to equivalent sized drill/drivers in a busy working environment) has the added bonus of being able to turn the power down for smaller stuff too. ive had it about 18 months and its had some hammer but i love it!

Oh did i mention i also impulse bought a 109 rolling body for another ground up project

just over a year after i started this thread. Guess how much progress has been made on the series II Ive managed to purchase but not get round to fitting a new harness from autosparks. That is all My daily driver 200TDi series III is also now parked up awaiting a bulkhead change and engine conversion "rework" and i have a TD5 discovery to drive about in while i sort the series III I've been doing a lot of jobs on other poeples cars and gotten more and more involved in my local YFC again now i'm back home from uni. Thus leaving zero time for any series II action

very impressive build so far Kimberly!

you might struggle getting passengers in now

I think thats probably the case. Interestingly shortly after my OP I decided to take it down't bottom field and see if they work. both are functioning and extremely well by the looks of it. I was actually rather impressed with it for saying its on almost bald road tyres. but that's a different story. I'm suspecting some option must have been semi turned off. nanocom is a maze of all kinds of options and annoying buzzers Think i'll take control of the nanocom this time though!

Hi all, Bit of an odd one. I was at a mates this weekend diagnosing a no-start on a td5 defender, and he has a nanocom so I asked him while I was there to turn on the cruise control option on the BCU ready for when I get around to finding the buttons and fitting it. Anyway, while he did that, unbeknown to me he managed to scroll through and find every single beeper option and turn them all on, headlights on, seatbelt, etc etc.. It was quite amusing, but anyway I had to scroll through and turn them all off. Move forward a day or 2. I had found previously a wire had chafed through on an ABS sensor so had ordered a new one. It arrived so I went to fit it, plugged my Icarsoft reader in to clear faults and turned the ignition on.. This is when I noticed it.. My ABS light bulb checks like normal and works as per... But my HDC light and TC light are nowhere to be seen. Not during bulb check, not during operation. My TC seems to kick in when I floor it on a field, (did this to test it) and the car beeps at me when I press the HDC button. I haven't actually tried to see if it slows me down on a hill. My question is (after reading through all that rubbish) has anyone had this before? I think They were working after we had the nanocom extravaganza but I can't definitely be sure. Maybe they had inadvertantly been turned off in the process of removing all the beepers. But I'm thinking its since changing the sensor.. Not that a hardware change like that should affect the lights. I've tried googling it but all I get is the 3 amigos threads. Maybe the bulbs have both simultaneously gone? Maybe the lights share a fuse which is seperate to the ABS light and seperate to the actual functions? I haven't a clue! Haha

Just picked up my 109 donor.. I've got to get BRY rebuilt first then I'll crack on with it

tell them you didn't ask for disks, if they dispute that, then ask them to remove the disks and put the old ones back on as you are refusing to pay for them. they will soon pipe down then! I always keep old parts till after they are happy with it whether the owner requests or not, just incase they want to see