heath robinson

Cheers for the replies all, it's a lot to think about. Si, it's pretty much your fault we're doing this in the first place - about 5 or 6 years ago I stopped in with my mate Mike to pick up a couple of things off you, and saw the reprap that you had in the office. that planted the seed, and it's been festering in the background, waiting for the technology to develop to the stage where we'll actually be able to use it, as opposed to get half way through building it and get distracted by more pressing matters... Hopefully! There's another machine (who's name escapes me, I'll link to it later) that you have to go on a course to build, meaning you've a really good idea of how it all works, and can upgrade and fix it yourself. I think it's twin nozzle, open source, and seems pretty good, but the makers are Italian, and have never done a build course over here, although the seemed really excited to come over and do one just for us!

Hi all. It's been decided that we could do with a 3D printer, preferably for under £800. I know a few of you have experience with these things, so what should I be looking at? It'll be used for prototyping and making plastic parts etc, so needs fairly good resolution and to be able to print good solid structures. Cheers Jake

But there definitely shouldn't be current in the sheathing though, right? I thingk the CB it's self must be U/S as it's just connected to the aerial socket at one end, and the other's not plugged into anything at the antenna end.

Odd problem of the day - when flailing the lead for the aerial of the CB in the truck around (as I'm wont to do), it touched the bulkhead, and there was sparking. A tickle of the multimeter reveals that the outer casing's got a full 12 of my battery's finest running around in it. That's never right, is it? Never had or used a CB before, but I'm assuming that as the outside of the connector to the aerial is grounded, that plugging it in like this would be a faux pas... Any clues? Cheers Jake

After much prodding of the wires, I found that there was a piggy-back connection to a relay for the spot lights on top. The spade connector that the previous numpty owner had used wasn't on right, and was making things spark. This seems to have somehow been affecting the main lights' operation, although I don't get how. New connector - problem solved. Even managed to fix the new Lucas switch flicking back to the sidelight position - found the connector was wedged up against it... fitted by the current numpty me, so slap on the wrist there.

I got it rebuilt in the end, removed and refitted by CR Allen in Peacehaven last week, and I have to say they were exceptional! They got it in as an emergency job, found someone who would rebuild it in the time allowed, hurried it in on monday morning (Only a little after I phoned them) and got it back to me on friday. Absolutely spot on, saved my bacon, really highly recommended bunch. Had a good oggle at my XR4x4 as I left too, so men of taste to boot!

I'll just leave this here... Commer T3 supercharged diesel mini Have a look what a T3 is. 3 Horizontal cylinders with a floating piston in each, and valves at each end. Properly potty!

Gave them a brief wiggle before having to blat off to get the transfer box done, and it seems to be where the issue is. I'll get at it all with contact cleaner when it comes back, thanks again Western.

Hi all. For a while, we've had an issue with the headlights sporadically not coming on. The sidelights work fine, but sometimes the main/dipped beam doesn't do squat. I changed the switch for a genuine lucas one, but that's not helped at all, it still does it (except that now the switch occasionally springs back to the sidelight only position, but that's another matter...). It mostly does it when you're trying to turn them on in the first place, but it sometimes does it while you're driving, which is especially fun when all the lights go out while you're blatting down a little lane. Whacking the switch area firmly, up under the steering column brings them all back on, and going over all of the switches and connections with a meter reveals nothing. As I say, I've replaced the on/off switch, so could it be the dip switch, or something else? Any help appreciated, as it's wearing a little thin now. Cheers Jake

I have a mechanic mate who did exactly that - after some years (at say £500 per for storage) he got the v5 from the dvla. He fixed the car up, put it on the forecourt, and low and behold, the previous arrives with the old bill in tow, shouting about him being a thief of the blackest order. He showed them the V5, and the unpaid receipts for storage, they laughed, and left. Job done. The interesting thing about this is that if you've registered your car, that it becomes property of the crown - REGISter, see? The V5 is merely a document proving that you are the lawful keeper. It clearly states "not proof of ownership". It's all to do with maritime law (as opposed to common law), as if you actually owned the car, they'd have a harder time legally taking it and crushing it for traffic offences etc. Therefore, you're not claiming ownership, merely taking it into your charge.

I've changed all four UJs to GKN HD jobs within the last two months, so hopefully it's not that! Didn't stop me wiggling them around to check though... thankfully still ok. The oil seems to be coming from somewhere up in the valley/gap between the front output and the rest of the box. I suppose that a 2nd hand one would be fine, if I can sort one in time, good call.

Hi all. Last weekend I lugged 3t of solar panels and batteries to a battle reenactment ('cause the middle ages were absolutely riddled with solar panels), and I noticed on the way back that there's more noise than usual from the drive train. I stopped in a service station, and found the transfer box was bloody hot (far hotter than the r380 or diffs), oily as hell, and stinking of ep90. Initial (And incorrect) thoughts were that the front bearing was shot, as there was oil coming back from it. However, having spent a lot of today sweraing at it, interspersed with banging my knuckles, it seems that the bearing is fine. Turns smoothly, no noise etc. but there's probably 1/8th of a turn of play with the diff lock on, and some funny feelings/noises that come free of charge. What might it be, and will I have to take the lot out? I'm guessing I will, and I don't want to. At all. What with fitting a new roofrack, fixing the winch controls, freeing up the not-very-freespool, correcting all the awful wiring bodges and helicoiling the hub flange bolts that the previous clown owner had snapped and SILICON SEALANTED THE BROKEN BIT BACK IN (On three different wheels!!!!!! ) I've got my work cut out to have it ready to tow said solar rig again Sunday week... Arrgh! Anyone know anyone near Brighton that'll rebuild a transfer box at short notice? Thanks Jake

Having to go back in and have them scrape the rust out of where the metal was wasn't fun... Especially when the nurse says "Now hold still, or I might stab you in the eye..." All I'm saying is this - if you think there's something well in there, go get it dealt with sooner rather than later. If it's there for too long, it rusts in the hole, resulting in the need for scraping.

I've just got the td5 back from Diesel Dave at D&P in Ditchling (cheers for the recommendation Simonr, he's a top bloke, thoroughly recommended), and while inevitably chatting about landrovers, we got onto the subject of fuel. He said that he's had a range of different places versions of diesel analysed by a mate, and the difference is more than slight - supermarket cheapo stuff has way less lubricity, so will cause wear to pumps etc. and said matey's advice was to obviously avoid supermarket stuff, but further, to fill up with the super-dooper posh stuff ("Supreme" or whatever) every few fills, say every tenth. Good enough for me! As to MPG, I've given up trying to calculate it, as the last run towing a 3.5t trailer, with mud tyres, a roofrack, spotlights all over the shop, and the truck full of tents gave me a lovely 15mpg...

I've used the yellow job, and as said above, was thoroughly unimpressed - spend the extra £20 if you really want a hydraulic one.

Not pump work, sorry, I meant Intercooler. Two conversations at the same time, neither of which ended up making sense! I've got the Lithuanian job, and have to say for 200 notes it seems spot on, and the truck seems happy again. Cheers

I think once you've factored in a remap and the pump work to take advantage of it, a vnt is going to be about 5 times the price of a £200 remanufactured job... I'd love to be wrong about that though! There's the possibility that it'll be getting a remap in the near future anyway, but I'm fairly certain that we won't be able to stretch to a vnt and the rest as well, more's the pity.

Good shout, thanks Les. I've looked them up, and they seem to be very professional, with a good reputation. There's a £100 surcharge, and the old unit needs to go to their plant in Latvia, but the new units are packaged up in Lewes, so about 5 mins away from me! I've asked them if I can collect, and pay cash. Fingers crossed.

Hi all. Turns out our turbo is truly knackered. I've found This on ebay, which for £200 for a recon job seems fair, but has anyone got any better suggestions? Cheers Jake

Can't adjust the helpers though can you? Eg. there's no way of having them not affect the spring rate when under high axle twist. I guess that I'm trying to make it do all things at once, as opposed to be set up for any one specific thing, but that's the life it leads, it's worked bloody hard in a huge variety of ways.

Also there's the purely physical side - vibration will cause fatigue in wires with thicker cores faster, if that makes sense. This is especially pertinent in landys, for obvious reasons...

We use 2v traction batteries on our big rigs, and the plates on them seem fine after 2 seasons of hard use, so I don't think it's that much of a problem for a car battery - the plates in the big batts are about 3ft long, and if they don't warp I'd imagine that the dinky plates in a car battery will survive. Yup, sorry! I get distracted by the unusual fairly easily. I'll make a little thread on the jump-pack when all the bits arrive, and all this kind of waffle can go in there.

Do you mean in respect to ecu etc? It's never been a problem, but then I'm running it in parallel with a battery, mostly on fairly old vehicles. The capri has an ecu (eeciv running a granada cosworth v6 ), and that doesn't seem to mind it. And thinking about it, that's the reason we use it on the big solar rig - it's parallel to the big batteries, to cater for the draw from the two 3kw (6kw peak) inverters, one of which feeds the honking gurt big bass amp for our honking gurt PA system. The other one runs the digital mixing desk and lots of other bits of sensitive gear. Never a flicker, and arguably the best sound at any given festival to boot! Sorry if I sound a little smug, it's taken us 10 years and a hell of a lot of work to build this up to this level, it's kind of my baby. Or are you meaning it could pull too much recharging after starting? They can't pull what isn't there, if you see what I mean, so to just top up the deficit from starting is fine, it'll either take it from the battery (which is only a fraction of the battery's stored energy - it might deliver a lot very fast, but it's still a fraction of the Ah rating of the average car battery) or charge from the alternator. In fact the best way we've found of charging them is either an alternator or a solar panel (handy, seeing as I'm surrounded by the bloody things!), they'll only pull what they're given.

Have a look at this - That's basically what I've got, but those are 350 farad caps, mine are 3000... The first time we filled up a 24v one (goes on our solar rig to smooth out the spikes of current the bass amp pulls for our stage) so much current flowed that the 50mm-sq cables went solid in my hands! A bit of back-of-fag-packet calculating and I came to the conclusion that it'd pulled in somewhere in the region of 30,000 joules of 'leccy IN THE FIRST THIRD OF A SECOND! These things are awesome, and scary, in equal measures. Hell of a jump pack though! It's so good that I've built one into my van in parallel, and i'm putting one my capri too, but with golf cart battries. The van (lt35 2.4) starts brilliantly, even after being ignored for months.

What's to do to the bodywork? Isn't that what it's supposed to look like?