FridgeFreezer

Gawd looking at the plumbing I'd cut the ali pipes a bit closer (so it's a fairly straight end), bead or flare the ends and just put cheap eBay silicone elbows on.

You've got enough silly plastic cars of your own to build!

Buy a cheap 12-point socket that's ever so slightly undersized and hammer it on.

She sort of fancies a few projects - we've made a couple of tables (which I welded, natch) and I ribbed her that I'd make her weld the next thing she comes up with her mum's already demanding a sculptural steel owl for her garden although she's had it explained that the hard part of that is not the welding! Also sort of fancies building a Cobra replica one day (although I suspect it's a very distant day!)

Well, as it looks like that's the end of it I'll give a few thoughts to sum up... Overall I think the course is well worth it - especially if you've not welded before. Sometimes it could feel like you're not getting huge amounts of tuition, but what you ARE getting is a couple of hours of good solid practice in an evening - good quality machines, set up well, as much steel , wire, and argoshield as you can burn through, and a tutor on hand to tell you what you're doing wrong or demonstrate how to do it right. For those newbies who might otherwise find themselves alone in a shed with a newly acquired hobby MIG and no clue about how to fly it, I'd say the course is an excellent idea. However, it IS very very basic and doesn't cover some stuff that Jez and Vince beat into me - proper metal prep, good grounding, stitching and weaving (touched on but not really demonstrated/practised), and of course it's not a metal fabrication course. I can't complain, as you can learn most of that for free from YouTube or indeed this very forum and they have to try to get a wide range of abilities over the finish line of being able to run a neat bead of MIG by week 8, which some were still perfecting last Wednesday. Also, I definitely learned stuff even though I've been MIG welding for a decade and watching more than enough welding videos online since acquiring my TIG set. Another point: As I cajoled my better half into joining, I'd say that aspect worked very well - I'm sure I'd have been a bad teacher, and having a proper tutor, a course structure, and some proper "exercises" set up was definitely better than any teaching at home would've been. And domestic harmony remains intact There were a couple of guys there who were aiming to restore cars and I feel they might get a bit of a shock when they move to crusty old wafer-thin bodywork, but then half of that is about prep and fabrication rather than the actual welding. And in case you're wondering, things I was taught by Jez and Vince: Proper metal prep; CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN, flappy wheel in grinder until you've got at least 5-10mm SHINY metal both sides of the joint. Chamfer edges on thick parts. Mega-clean anything that's zinc coated giving a BIG (20mm+) gap between the SHINY CLEAN metal and any remaining zinc. Tack stuff firmly, you'll be amazed how far and how strongly stuff can move/warp with the heat For aluminium, a dedicated stainless wire brush for ali ONLY, ideally a cheap bench grinder for tungstens ONLY, any abrasives used on the part should be kept for ali ONLY so you're not rubbing steel particles into the surface. Good grounding The pressed-tin croc-clamp that comes with your welder belongs in the bin, a good solid ground is everything - I use the G-clamp style. Heavy objects not only stop the work piece from moving around but also help make good solid contact to the bench, when the bench is the ground. Big lumps of steel, ali or brass/copper are amazingly helpful to hold stuff down, prop stuff up, and take heat away (esp. thin stuff & ali). Stitching and weaving For thin stuff, stitching is essential - I've posted UrchFab's video on it elsewhere in this thread and it's still the best I've seen. Weaving - just basic forward-back or a line of e's, can give a good result and I find it helps to create a rhythm that keeps you moving at a steady pace rather than trying to just move in one continuous line like a robot. For relatively big stuff with a relatively small welder it's very useful. HobNobs Essential.

Can you unbolt the TPS and flip it 180?

Jack it up, ideally get it on 4 axle stands so the wheels are in the air and try wobbling and turning things for starters. If it's that bad it could be a major part has let go, such as the diff or IRD, or it could be something simple like a bush, a mount, or a driveshaft.

Twas in the mighty Nissan Bluebird 1.6LX 3 of us in the car driving slowly as mate in the back was giving directions - midnight after a long shift so it's the "wrong" time too... copper thought he'd struck gold, hung a proper U-turn to pull us over and was all pleased with himself until we pointed out we were all wearing identical works overalls, he was welcome to check our timesheets from 15 minutes ago, and when asked where he lived my mate basically pointed to "that house there" Derby road in Southampton, you'd have to be pretty desperate I think I've been pulled in the 109 now in almost every country I've driven it through - mostly they just want a look at the vehicle and to check you're not an idiot, although the Russian ones usually just want 200roubles (~£4) "speeding fine".

Am I missing something - why not bolt it to those two threaded holes?

I've only been pulled for kerb-crawling once... dropping my mate home who (I discovered) lived in the red-light district!

V5 came back, the 109 is officially Historic

Ooooh what's this - science and coding on the forum? Subscribed! BTW I have a dead air-ride controller here that someone gave to me to see if I could fix it, apparently they're hella money and have a specific failure quite commonly (ISTR the pressure monitoring for the tank pressure?), it's all a bit fiddly and monolithic but if the valve block etc. might be of use I'll pop it in the post if you like?

I think it's possible to fit the rocker cover from the "wrong" side, maybe that's what's happened... Definitely looks like the crank case vent pipe;

^ What he said, you'd kick yourself if one of the kids got sick. I guess the chassis-swapping party is postponed for the time being though... do you think you'll have enough other projects to keep you busy?

You're sharing a forum with Hybrid_From_Hell who can end up in A+E just making a cup of tea and you're wondering how someone could injure themselves working on their car?

A certain forumer used Asda chopping boards to make a spacer for his TBI unit You don't need to over-think this stuff - as long as some petrolly air can make its way into the engine it'll run, the rest is just polishing!

Callipers are alloy if that makes a difference

For reference, my setup: Series 3 pedal box, Defender servo + 110 master cylinder, Wilwood 4-pot callipers + 310mm discs all round, far more braking than grip

If I had one, yes! Maybe a drill with a burr in it I suppose... but is that more or less betterer than clamping it all up and swinging it in the drill press I wonder?

Bit of a conundrum for you as we're locked down so I can't enlist the help of friends with bigger mills or rotary tables To fit the brake calliper inside the rim on the 109 I need to machine a little clearance into the top face of it, ideally with a nice neat radius. The old one was done with an angle grinder in somewhat of a hurry and I'd rather make it neat! Well, the old one as it stands machined itself a bit too much against the inside of the wheel rim after a bolt came loose So I've got a brake calliper, and I need to machine a ~35cm diameter chamfer across the top of the front 1/4 of it with the equipment that falls to hand: - Large pillar drill - Lathe (Boxford CUD) but nowhere near 35cm throw - Tiny CNC mill which you probably couldn't even fit the calliper onto the bed - Milling cutters and carbide burrs - Welders, angle grinders My best idea so far is to make some sort of jig to mount the calliper at the correct offset in the pillar drill and then swing the table around the support column with a carbide burr in the chuck to give the correct radius... but that feels like it's going to grab the calliper and potentially chew the hell out of it if anything goes wrong. Could do a similar arrangement on the lathe (burr in chuck, calliper on tool post) but it doesn't lend itself quite so easily to the setup and the potential issues feel about the same. So, what else could I do?

I thought he said builders were OK as they're out in the fresh air... as long as they're keeping a distance & washing their hands, natch.

OMEM manual says it likely uses TPS for load unless it's boosted. MS uses MAP, it only uses TPS as a throttle pump.

I used Inkscape for the last one I did - it's a free open source vector drawing package. There's free circuit/schematic software out there, KiCad gets a lot of support from the hobby crowd.

Vacuum, throttle position, and engine load are related but not the same, you couldn't paste that map into MS without some fiddling.

Yep - the planet gears in diffs are made to take up the small/slow difference in speed when turning a corner or a brief wheel slip so they are (relatively) under-sized - the LT230 centre is a prime example and it's not very well lubricated I believe. What this means is if you spin a wheel really fast or drive for miles with wrong-size tyres etc. you're making the little weak gears spin all the time and get a lot hotter / deplete their oil supply at which point something's going to go bang. This is why LR manuals and the sticker on the dash says to lock the centre diff "if traction is likely to be lost".