heath robinson

I've got a power probe, which lets me negative up the various earth straps etc, it's just that I started with the big ones that are easily reached, then got distracted by the thing throwing the UJs out of the transfer box yoke on the front prop on the way home, which is why I ended up using the diff lock. Good idea using the jump leads, that's a quick solution if you haven't got a probe. Western, I think that the one by the servo is the one I referred to in my last post. Am I right in thinking it's the one in the engine bay, by the servo, near the grommets through from the cab. Is there another behind the dash on the bulkhead, inside the cab? I've been searching old posts, but I can't find any hint of one yet. Cheers for the help guys

All manner of extra gremlins appeared today when I stuck the diff lock on. Seems that when the warning light comes on, the indicators start at normal speed and get faster and faster... Waves of random warning lights punctuated the drive home, and the horn had a half-hearted go when I put the sidelights on. I'll have a good go at it tomorrow, there's an earth on the engine-side of the bulkhead and the two behind the lights still to try.

Good call, it's a new truck to us, and some of the wiring in the battery box looks a little unorthodox so that's probably the best place to start. Thanks

I had a bit of a surprise while on a quite long journey this evening. All of the headlights took against me, and tried to help me into many hedges. I'll try to be as thorough as possible. Firstly the driver's side main beam stopped working. The passenger side and roof spots worked, the dips were ok,and changing the bulb didn't help, so I though it might be a wire or connection for the main beam. The roof spots worked as normal, dipping with the main beam. However, tonight as I switched on the lights, the main beam indicator on the dash came on with the lights dipped, and only the driver's side dipped beam was illuminated. The roof spots came on whether on dipped or main beam. When switching to main beam, both sides came on, but so weakly as to be pointless. The sidelights worked normally throughout. Driving back along twisty main roads with only one dipped beam, and using the roof lights as main beams was pretty interesting... And to add to the fun, the LED strips in the rear body decided to start flashing at random, mostly during right-hand bends. This meant that there were more than a few moments where the main thing I could see in the windscreen was my own startled face, and the new haircut that I'm not sure about. Not really an ideal way to travel at night! Where should I start? Relays, dip/indicator stalk, or the loom? I think that the interior lights are a separate issue, so don't worry about that for now. Although I hate vehicle electrics, I'm not too bad at dealing with them, and have all the appropriate testers etc. Thanks, Jake

Yeah, ally's another one of those materials that really demands good air filtration. I did a bit of stuff with a wood called Wenge (pronounced "Wenj" "Wenguh" or "Wengey" depending on who you ask). It's a beautiful wood, dark, dark brown, with jet black rings, hard as hell, and really heavy. However, there's big enough deposits of silica in it to take visible chunks out of your plane blades, the splinters will go septic over night, and the dust is carcinogenic!

Works really well, provided your vac is about as powerful as the original dyson jobby, or more so, then you get filtration somewhere in the 99th percentile! You can bung a clean filter in your vac, chew through a load of fine dust, and the filter will be pretty much spotless after. You need to take the bung out of the bottom of the cone bit every so often to empty the very fine dust out. On the power front, we've got a large cyclone extractor in the workshop for wood dust, that came from a guy on a woodwork forum I moonlight on - shameless plug for a bit of gear that is cheap, and really good. No connection other than being a satisfied customer http://www.cyclonecentral.co.uk We had it on a 2hp jet motor and rotor, pulling dust and chip from a few machines. It was letting a noticeable amount of fine dust past the big cyclone and into the filter bag. By putting a sip 3hp motor and fan on it, the speed of the particles inside the cyclone is high enough to force them to drop out. No more dust in the filter, and noticeably better collection around the machines.

Will a mod please delete this, and the post above? I'm having one of those days, I can only get imgur to upload pics on my phone, and can only edit them on the tablet. Why is it never easy?!

We've got a screw-type splitter, runs off a big electric motor. I really like it, amazing bit of kit.

So, after filling my nose with tons of paint dust, and clogging up a few Henry filters, I did this. Take the bottom off the dust collecting bit, plug up the bottom of the cyclone jobby (this is normally done by the bottom of the bin bit)' and mount to the top of your chosen waste container. Find a push-fit plumbing fitting that fits your vacuum hose, and attach this to the sucky-side connection (that's a technical term). Find/acquire a vac hose that'll fit your tools, and get a plumbing fitting to fit that too. Attach that fitting to the entry port to the bin bit, and wah-la, as the French say! *Health and Safety warning - please ensure you're wearing your best running shoes, and have set up a camp bed in your garage before using any parts of SWMBO's nice new Dyson. For ultimate safety, buy the bit off eBay (cost about £15 delivered), and leave hers intact. Maybe even buy her some flowers, just to be on the safe side.

Do you mean Milwaukee, De Ranged? Red, mostly.

I've got a cheapo Wicks one which has lasted me well, and a skinny blue Bosch one, which I love. As it's so skinny, I can use it single handed far more, and for much, much longer. I think it cost me about £50 from a local tool shop. I look after my tools, and don't overload them, but I do use them a lot, and so far the bosch has been flawless.

I'll have to agree to differ over whether fracking is safe or not, but, having done a bit more research, I'll readily agree with you about it not being the reason for allowing this to happen. Suffice to say I've found two articles that clearly lay out how and why this has happened, with cross-referencable sources. The first is this article in the Telegraph, and the second is from the tinfoil-hat brigade, but if you ignore the first bit, the bit about EU and UN policy is easily referencable, and right. It's here. and the latter part is well worth a read. However, I think it's safe to say that the first few unreferenced tinfoil-hat paragraphs are where the idea of fracking having a hand in it came from, so skip over that and have a squint at the cross-referencable bit. It's incredibly galling to think that this isn't even government incompetance, it looks convinvingly like it's policy!

I have a little thought to put in peoples minds, so that if things develop as I'm thinking they might, then it's not just me who's eyes are open, if you catch my drift. I'll have to do a little checking, as I want to be sure of my facts about this, but it does seem that the local MP was kept in the dark about the state of things by Whitehall, and that although this has been a problem for a few years, the dredging was almost willfully ignored. The disturbing thought goes like this - Much of the levels is becoming uninsurable, much of the farmland has become polluted due to this flood, and there are huge shale gas deposits under the levels too. I really hope that this won't be the case, but I think we may find land being bought up at rock-bottom rates from farmers who can't afford to do anything else, and then the spectre of fracking raising it's ugly head. It is indisputable that the relevant authorities knew about the state of the drainage, and that at some stage, someone conciously made a decision not to get the situation rectified. It's also indisputable that the fracking industry has a strong hold over our government - you only have to look at how the Greater Manchester Police have been acting essentially as hired security for the Barton Moss drilling site, at a cost of hundreds of thousands to the taxpayer. I'm sorry if that's a bit much, I generally try to steer well clear of discussing politics etc, but this is both blatant and sickening, and far too coincidental, and I really don't want to see such a beautiful bit of my home destroyed for greed. As I said, I really hope I'm wrong!

I have a minor curve ball to add in here... I'm in the process of putting a electric steering pump from an Astra into my Capri. I'm not sure of the flow rate, but they're load-sensing, and at full chat can draw about 60A, and have a fairly hefty pump case. No belts, 4 wires (+ve on an 80A fuse, Earth, line to the alternator light to make sure the car's running, and a 12v ignition feed). There are a few things that run 'leccy pumps, but the astra and MR2 ones don't have any Canbus carp, and are cheap and readily available. The electric car people seem to know a lot about them, so maybe you could ask Nighttrain (I think it's him that's into EV stuff) if he can find out flow rates/pressures? Or, for £30 delivered, just buy one and try it out. If it don't work, put it back on ebay for the same money! Between adding a leccy water pump and this, and loosing the idler etc, I'll probably see an extra 10bhp to play with! Maybe you could even double them up, so have a pair in parallel? £30 has to be cheaper than an aftermarket belt-driven pump, and to be honest, I'd think it'd probably still be cheaper even with two!

Hi all. As per the title, is there anyone in the yeovil/sherborne or even chard or exeter areas that'd be up for earning a bit of pocket money doing a bit of tigging? I need a plate put into a modified waterpump casing (in place of the impeller). It's ally, and obviously it needs to be watertight and hold pressure. I also will need a little hose tail covered on a themostat hosing too. Any takers? Cheers, Jake

They're pretty good, ain't they! I recently got pointed at http://www.bulgin.co.uk/Products/Buccaneer/Buccaneer7000Power-Plastic.html too, which are available from Farnell I think, and seem pretty cheap.

I'll have a look in the lockup when I next go that way. I've a tin of something horrific that my or may not be sprayable. It's an industrial sound deadening goo that a mate in the industry (accoustic engineering) liberated for me. Come to think about it, I'll text said accoustic nerd, and ask him if he can reccomend anything.

I've used them for bearings a few times, and they always seem to be damn cheap, good shout. Cheers.

Quick Q, as the title really. I need a fair few airline bits, so just wondered if anyone had found any cheap suppliers? Cheers, Jake

That's what I wanted to hear, the heatshrink and wire arrived today, the vaseline's already in the garage. Worryingly, it's next to what Samco recommended to help fit a really tricky silicone hose - KY jelly...

You're right Zardos, £68 is a fair bit, especially when you've added in two plugs too. Look good though,exactly what I was thinking of.

The chinese jobby arrived, oddly with a portsmouth postmark. I'm beginning to think that there's a tunnel from bejing to portsmouth, as that's the third or fouth thing that that's happened with. Anyway, they show good contact on all of the pins, feel well made, and fairly substantial. Here's a couple of better pics than the one on ebay. Them seem pretty good, but I think I'd feel better if someone who has a bit more experience has a look. I'm just wondering if the soldered connections would deal with the vibration very well, but I suppose that the trigger wheels ones are the same thing, even if not the same make, but they seem happy selling them for this purpose, soldered contacts and all. I suppose I should also think about water ingress, as even though I'm not going to be wading the thing, I don't want water getting in.

Hopefully not! However, there's a fair few changes that I'd like to make over time, and TBH it's a pain in the arse (or more specifically a pain in the knees) leaning into the capri's engine bay. Even if you can reach whatever you're tinkering with, quite often you can't properly get at it, or then get it out. For instance, until I fit landy engine mount rubbers I can't remove the brake servo without removing the engine, and it's virtually impossible to remove the rocker covers with the servo still in place without destroying your fingers... ask me how I know! The resulting frustration when the rocker STILL LEAKS is fairly debilitating . This engine wins several of the "Most awkward ..." prizes. If it wasn't so very, very good, just changing the thermostat bypass hose that runs through a cavity between the head and the block and necessitates removing the plenum (yes, really) might have prompted me to sell it. Oddly, there are more and more bits of landy finding their way onto the car, like the brake master, and engine rubbers. Eventually I'd like to build a girdle for the main bearing caps and baffle the sump, and make up a plenum and put in some later spec cams. These'd both be easier with the engine out. Also, for my first major bit of looming it seems like it would be easier to get neat and tidy by doing it in two discrete lumps. I'm changing the engine (To another of the same, just much lower miles) at the same time, so I can build up the block part of the loom in the workshop while the engine's on the stand, where everything's easy to get at. I was going to phone Trigger-wheels, but it seems that they don't do conversation, only having a fax number. Nice to get the human touch! Anyway, I sent them a few questions, so will wait to see what the say. Maybe I should buy one of theirs too, to compare with the chinese jobby.

I'll have a look in the scrappy at one, see if they look like I could find new pins for them. Cheers