Dave W

Does reverse work OK ?

There are so many grey areas in this and I guess we all have our own definition of "hand made". It depends how much of a purist you are I guess... There's a perception form the OP that "hand made" requires body work panels to be created from scratch but what about the wires ? What about the materials for the body ? What about the instruments, switches, the gearstick and so on ? The reality is that even in the most bespoke cars, at some point, they are not "hand made" but assembled. I'm not aware of any car manufacturers that go out and dig up their own iron ore to produce body panels. Neither do they mine copper and produce their own wire. It's not easy to draw a definitive line in the sand to determine at what point an item is "assembled" vs "made".

There is a notification system currently in place for all devices, apps and web sites. When you register for a notification a unique code is generated that is then used to identify and "send" notifications to the device. There is no connection required between the notification ID that is used and any other information or data on that device, it can be truly anonymous. Devices connect to the Apple or Google servers and present their unique ID, requesting any notifications for that ID and these are then displayed on the device if a notification is found/returned. The data sent via these notifications is end to end encrypted so the content of a message cannot be read even by the intermediary service. I don't know the precise mechanism for data collection, there have been suggestions that this will be done when/if the owner contracts the virus and the data upload can then be triggered. The data sent would be just the bluetooth IDs encountered, the receiving system would then need to pair those with notification IDs when needed. It may be that they use a new API rather than the existing push notification services. The point is that this system has no connection to your device or you. Even in the case that notifications are sent out, the sending system has no way to identify who will pick up the notification. If you like, it works like a dead drop in the world of espionage, the sender has no idea who the notification is intended for. The specifications so far released include new encryption techniques for bluetooth messages so I assume each device will also generate it's own public and private key. If anyone's interested in the underlying technology and the details of the system released so far there are a number of papers/specs available... https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/04/apple-and-google-partner-on-covid-19-contact-tracing-technology/

There are much better and more private systems being developed for the two major smartphone platforms at the moment, being developed in a joint effort between Apple and Google. This system is "opt in", is untraceable to a specific person and uses bluetooth proximity rather than WiFi/Cellular/GPS location. In the event that someone who has opted in is tested positive, all the people they've been close to in the previous 7/14 days will receive a notification on their device that they may have been in contact with the virus. As well as detecting proximity the function can also record length of contact etc... It may well end up playing a major role in contact tracing for this and any subsequent pandemics. In the meantime the "apps" being developed will have less privacy and will rely on less reliable technology. The one thing they will have though, unlike the anonymous operating system functions, is the ability to record someone's "status" as positive, negative or resistant. This is the system that China have been using as they lift the lockdown, anyone moving through checkpoints has to show a green status - negative or resistant on their phone app. I guess we may see a combination of apps and OS functions, shame really that the only countries that were ready for this were China and South Korea due to the previous SARS and Avian Flu precautions and their preparations for handling those.

This is the throttle end... This is mine in situ... I can’t remember if I had to modify anything as it was 2007 when I fitted mine !

I use a P38 throttle cable on mine, don't remember having any issues fitting it to the Defender throttle pedal... I have a spare cable in my spares kit, I expect it will have the part number on it. Mine's used for an LSx engine in a Defender which uses a similar throttle to the Thor. If it helps, you can see the throttle towards the end of this clip...

Fritzing would be perfect for this, create custom elements with pins for each module and then "wire" from one pin to the next. Once pins are connected you can move the modules around and it will maintain the connections. In my use, for custom modules, I take a photo of the module, import it and define the connecting points.

I use Eagle from Autocad, the freeware version will cope with most hobbyist requirements, primarily used for PCB design rather than circuit diagrams though. Fritzing is also worth looking at for circuit diagrams as you can create modules and then connect the pins together, setting the colour of the wire etc... I use that mostly for Arduino projects and it produces easy to follow diagrams. Once you've joined pins together you can move the modules around and it auto routes the "wires" for you. One of my Fritzing projects...

The MSA have shot themselves in the foot to a certain extent because they keep changing their story on exactly why licenses are now required and why the permit fees have more than doubled. They then said that it was to help sustain them, then that it was to promote the sport. Then it was due to insurance, then they announced that they had combined the permit and insurance fee as that was now "confidential" and the split in costs (insurance/permit) is no longer to be disclosed. The reality is that they want to harvest data for purposes they won't disclose, even in response to a GDPR request. The £5 extra per entry is actually to pay for the "free" licenses so the directors can increase profit whilst getting competitors to pay to harvest the data. The license application violates their own privacy policy as far as I can tell and they've refused to clarify what the data is to be used for or why they are gathering it. I don't yet have figures for 2019 but profits before tax for the MSA have been as follows: 2014: £285,000 (7.3 million turnover) 2015: £73,000 (7.75 million turnover) 2016: £439,000 (7.72 million turnover) 2017: £432,000 (8.23 million turnover) 2018: £454,000 (9.55 million turnover) Now, I'm no financial guru but it seems to me that if you're running a limited company and still declaring nearly half a million as taxable profit... you can live without taking £5 extra per month from trials competitors. They actually earn over £200,000 a year in interest, that must really give them sleepless nights. The directors of the MSA are paid £650,000 and the employees get £2,753,000 between 50 of them. One of the directors gets paid £275,000 per year. That'll be the same director that decided to add £5 per entry because otherwise the MSA would not be financially viable... They have £16,000,000 in assets of which just under £2,000,000 is "working capital" which is, presumably, where most of their interest income originates. Between 2017 and 2018 Turnover increased by over 16%, pre-tax profits increased by over 5%, working capital increased by nearly 49% and shareholder funds increased by nearly 4%. I've still not had a response to my GDPR clarification request from mid November...

I'm still waiting for a response to my GDPR clarification (First sent to MSA in November) but in the meantime we've not found a viable alternative. At our AGM there was a lot of ill feeling towards the MSA but also an acceptance that we don't have any good alternatives at the moment. All we can hope is that increasing the costs and complexity of competing will not have a negative effect on numbers. We'll add something to our own privacy policy to warn members that we do not believe the MSA or their license application process is GDPR compliant until we get clarification or they change the process and/or privacy statement.

You can't bleed the entire system on a TD5 due to the fuel system design. You can bleed most of it but not all of it. For that reason, if it's run out of fuel at the injectors, it can take a lot of cranking to clear it. I have dual tanks on mine and I find that if I switch over before it runs out of fuel I don't have an issue but if I let it run out before switching tanks it can take ages to purge it all again and get it to fire up. A few minutes cranking is not unusual then it'll start trying to run on a cylinder or two and eventually fire up. If you clear the faults do they appear again ?

We'd already assumed there was no way back, I hadn't seen the ALRC had met with them, seems they came up against a brick wall too but there does seem to be some confirmation that the original "press release" was, as suspected, complete fabrication. It's interesting that the ALRC seem to have forgotten that they are one of the bodies in the UK that can issue exemption certificates though !

I think that the massive increase in permit fees are a direct result of the policy that you mention. Basically they are trying to leverage competitor data by ensuring that anyone taking part in MSA events has to submit their personal data to them first. Currently some of this data is only held by clubs but the MSA now want sex/age/address/relation information to sell on to third parties. In order to get a license you now have to agree to that. In order to finance the new license scheme they have increased all entries across the board but grass roots events, as a percentage, are paying more than double. I have asked the MSA why they have done this without consultation and got no reply. I also asked their privacy contact why the license form appears to contradict their own privacy policy and got no reply.

The problem we have at the moment is simply the cost of most of the alternatives. Our current entry fee is £15 for a trial entry. No license is required other than club membership which, for existing members, is £15 per year. Over the last few years entry numbers have dropped slightly but we've just about been breaking even over the year which is pretty much as we want it. We pay around £10 per entry to the land owner and just under £5 per entry to the MSA for the permit/insurance. With the MSA increasing their fee from just under £5 to £10 now is a good time to review our options. We've tried avoiding increasing entry fees in the past as we've found that the entry numbers drop off proportionally so adding £5 to the entry fee is likely to reduce entry numbers. When we've tried more expensive land and increased the cost of entry, numbers have always dropped off. We also have issues with new competitors being put off by too much paperwork so adding another layer with the addition of a mandatory license is unlikely to improve matters. What we would ideally like to find is a way to continue with our motor sport without increasing costs and paperwork... hence we're interested in hearing if any other clubs have found viable alternatives for grass roots competition. Most of the alternatives we've looked at seem to need a license for each competitor which is probably a bigger obstacle to new competitors than the MSA license given that the MSA one is free at the moment. Nora/MCF, for example would be way too expensive, as would the IOPD which would be the more obvious alternative.

Like many MSA clubs we're looking at options for 2020 in light of the massive relative increase in permit fees for 2020. Is your club going to take the hit and increase entry fees for trials or have they looked at alternative options around event insurance ? Yorkshire Off Road Club have not renewed our MSA membership yet until a decision is taken at the upcoming AGM and I'm a bit surprised that the changes appear to have gone without comment on here. FWIW we have been investigating the practicality and cost of extending our current insurance to cover our events and running them outside of the MSA and will be presenting the results at our AGM for members to make a decision on. For anyone that's not aware, the MSA at the end of 2019 announced that permit fees would be more than doubled for our trials events and, in addition, all competitors and passengers would require an MSA license (free) in addition to club membership.

It's a coil driver, allows you to fire an ignition coil from a 5v logic signal. It's been developed by Bosch and has all sorts of safeguards to try and prevent it getting damaged due to misuse/bad configuration with over temperature protection, current limiting and so on. You take the input 5v high for the dwell period and the coil fires when you drop the input to 0v. https://secu-3.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/pdf/bip373_datasheet.pdf If I had to hazard a guess I'd suspect that most of the current combined coil and driver offerings use this device, it's a lot more robust than the older VB921 we used to use as a coil driver. You connect the base (B) pin through a resistor to the MS ECU spark output, emitter (E) to vehicle earth and the collector (C) to the coil -ve. The other side of the coil is connected to ignition 12v. One thing you do have to watch though is that the collector is connected to the metal tab/heatsink so when you bolt it to a metal surface you need to make sure it's insulated, normally using a mica insulation kit. There are a number of places selling them in the UK and US or you can get a pack of 5 from aliexpress for under £10 if you're prepared to wait: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/BIP373-TO220-Series-250-V-16A-Bipolar-Triple-Stage-Automotive-Ignition-Driver-30115/1132722921.html

MS3 is the same as MS1 in that it has a series of spark outputs that all OUTPUT 5v. EDIS is an automated coil driver controller, it has 4 built in coil drivers and a circuit that reads the crank signal to power the coil drivers at the correct time. You can use coils with built in drivers such as the VW ones or LSx ones or you can use external drivers with your existing coils to convert the 5v signal from the MS ECU into a spark, typically you use a BIP373 for each coil and use your existing coils. Your choice really, depends on your budget and requirements - you can get 4 x BIP373 for less than £20, mount them in there own box near the coils and it's no different to EDIS or new coils. I use an Aluminium box to house mine, the box acts as a heatsink and also screens any electrical interference. The wiring details are available in the MS documentation. The VW option is very good, just not the cheapest and means new ht leads etc... I use this setup with standard RV8 coil packs so I can use "off the shelf" HT leads.

Why ?

I have a Sankey camping trailer too. A Howling Moon trailer tent mounted on a custom framework, trailer with onboard water, fridge, lighting etc...

EDIS will also happily run RV8 coils such as those from the later GEMS and Thor engines, P38 Range Rovers or Discovery 2 V8s if you come across any. Also worth looking on Aussie LR sites/forums for people breaking them.

Check the fuel return pipe, the flexible parts have a habit of delaminating and blocking the return, results in excessive fuel pressure at the manifold (fuel rail) . Easy way to check is to disconnect the return pipe at the regulator and put a piece of pipe from that into a jerry can or similar, if it fixes the problem, you have a blockage in the return line.

It depends how adventurous you are and how willing to dabble. MegaSquirt is a good option but has moved away from the original DIY EFi concept and is now dominated by commercial rather than the original open source ethic. As a result, prices have rocketed as a small number of commercial suppliers have dominated the market. Sadly it seems the only people not making a living out of it are the people that designed the hardware and wrote the firmware. If you're looking for an "off the shelf" solution then you can get close with MegaSquirt but be aware that prices are more comparable now with other bespoke solutions. That said Nige offers a good, basic product but you won't get much in the way of support for it in the main MegaSquirt community as MS1-Extra is not considered viable by many now. If you like a bit more of a challenge, Speeduino is pretty mature now and has the advantage, over MegaSquirt of being an open source solution with cheap, easily available hardware, hardware costs around £120 for the ECU and it uses TunerStudio to tune/adjust, just like MegaSquirt. The UK supplier for Speeduino used to be one of the main MegaSquirt suppliers but appears to have switched. Speeduino uses a VR sensor board which vastly improves VR sensor reliability and precision over the older MegaSquirt design. Later MegaSquirt hardware also uses this external VR conditioner. Even assembled ECUs are significantly cheaper than MegaSquirt with an assembled and tested ECU coming in at less that £180 from the UK supplier. There is work in progress to embed an auto transmission controller into Speeduino too which looks an interesting option.

Do you have a lift kit fitted/taller than standard suspension ? Toe in at the front can cause the line to move away from the front of the rear tyre, turn the steering until you get the same gap at the front of both rear tyres, if you can. If you have toe out on the front then, with the steering straight, you'll see a gap appear at the rear of the front tyres.

Jigsaw. Use masking tape to cover the line of the cut and then you can mark the line you need to follow clearly. It will also help prevent the paint lifting at the cut. Make sure the masking tape also covers the area the the jigsaw will be resting on as it will scratch the paint otherwise, especially on the corners as you turn the jigsaw to follow the curve, the back end of the jigsaw comes out a long way from the cut. Remember the strengthening pillars behind the panel though, you either need to cut them out first from the inside or you'll risk snagging or bending the jigsaw blade. For that I'd use an angle grinder - carefully.

Water/coolant will only flow out of the overflow when the pressure exceeds the rating of the cap. So, there are two possible causes, the coolant is under too much pressure or the cap is faulty and letting coolant out at too low a pressure. If you have too much pressure then it's either a cooling issue and the coolant is getting too hot or something else is increasing the pressure - cylinder head leak, for example or air in the system. I'd start by checking the cap is in good condition and work from there.