heath robinson

Othery is the same, litterally an island at the moment!

On the subject of not fighting against nature, might I recommend to anyone interested in how water works (eg everything ffrom how to get rivers to stay in the right place to how to design super-efficient turbines) the work of an Austrian guy called Viktor Schauberger. He had a fascinating view on how we interact with water - that we commonly use explosive force, eg the water is pushing against things, be it a turbine blade or a river bank. He suggests that water is far more powerful used as an IMplosive force - pulling the water around a corner, or using the centre of a vortex to pull a turbine round. It's not immediately germaine to the flooding of the levels, but his (proven) ideas about altering river flow also encompass using the water's flow to remove silt buildup automatically. Just thought someone might find his stuff interesting!

You miss my meaning! It's a fine way to get a loom through the bulkhead, it just doesn't suit my purposes. Irrespective of where that plug is, I want to be able to disconnect one plug, and remove the engine from the car. As there are more wires than just the ones for the ECU to be dealt with (Temp gauge sender, Electric cooling system temp sender, alternator light and 12v feed, starter signal), I'd like to fit a single plug that disconnects everything in one fell swoop (aside from the high-current 12v feed, as the battery is in the boot, but I already have one of these to help with that). I'm basically splitting the front section of the loom into 3 sections, one part running down each wing (lights, indicators, horn, leccy P/S and leccy fan on one side, lights, indicators, and leccy waterpump on t'other) and one part going to the engine, as opposed to having the vehicle's original loom beside a new loom just for the MS.

Developers money always seems to push aside considered objection. We've seen it in cornwall near my parents place, where the council had to stump up hundreds of thousands for flood defences to defend homes built quickly, poorly, and in a stupid place. That and the fact that second-homeowners buy old cottages on the edge of floodplanes from families that have lived there long enough to understand how to cope. They put expensive rugs and carpets over stone floors, and posh fitted furniture, so when it floods a bit, instead of just going upstairs, they raise merry hell with the council, and demand flood protection. If you can't stand water, mud, and the smell of farming, bugger off out of the countryside! Sorry, that might have been a little rant there, touched a nerve somewhat. On the up side, I saw some prat in a newish disco near Othery driving down a flooded lane fairly soak a woman on her bike, only to miss a change in the road's direction, thus ending up with one side of the car fairly well submerged in the roadside dyke! The woman seemed to think that this was just about right, and so did I!

Wow! Maybe not then... I'll wait to see what the chinese postman brings, otherwise it'll have to be the triggerwheels job. I'm not that keen on the idea of bunging the loom, plug and all, through a big grommet, I'd really like to be able to split the engine from the car in one go, which means that there's more wires than just the MS to go through it.

I think Polevolt are a bit cheaper than VWP in most cases, they seem to be cheapest so far, I just wondered if anyone had any sneaky sources. My local motor factors is actually quite cheap, but on the amount I'm ordering, maybe not cheap enough. I'm not averse to paying for quality, but when one connector set costs more than the entire loom with plugs and wrapping etc, that seems a bit steep. And it's not really the waterproofness that I'm after here. in fact, I have a small admission to make... Cough It's not going in a landrover cough cough It's going in a Capri, onto a Cossie 24v v6 . I know, I'm a terrible person etc, but as the landy's rebuild is somewhat glacial, and the cossie lump has convinced me that the RV8 isn't all that, so I've decided to use the MS I have on the Capri. I'm getting better numbers from a £300 stock 2.9 than I got from a lightly breathed-on 4.2 by a long way. Even bog standard it made 195bhp and a similar amount of torque. With a different plenum, the new exhaust and a later set of cams I should see 250bhp with very little effort, and be getting about 35mpg to boot. I don't mean that I'll fit the cossie lump to the 110, just that I think I'll keep an eye out for a modern V8 rather than spending hundreds trying to drag an old engine into the modern age, and use the modern-age toys to put the Capri into a ditch at higher speeds. On second though, maybe it should all be waterproof! I suppose what I should do is stump up for the chinese connector and see if it's any good. The ones on the trucks have too few pins for what I need. The easiest way of getting a through-bulkhead plug is to buy two, and joining them through the dash, and fitting the interior one into a little box, but I think I'll wait for the first one to arrive before buying the second one, as it may be they are carp, and the trigger-wheels ones are better.

Zardos, if perchance you sit up in the middle of the night yelling the place that the double-sided ones come from, that would be amazing. otherwise the loom inside the bulkhead will have to be soldered through to the connector, if you see what I mean, meaning I'd never be able to remove the interior loom from the car. The trigger wheels ones also look almost exactly like the chinese job in my linky from the bay of E. Surprisingly similar, but a fair bit of a mark up! Either way, I'll have a look at the ones on the truck, as they are gen-yoo-eyene yank military ones, so should be fairly good if they have enough pins. Amphenol - Yowch! About £35 for the socket, and £77 for the plug from RS!!! Wowzers! As an aside, where's the cheapest place to get the junior connectors, and indeed superseal connectors from? I bought a loom's worth of wire from Autosparks, which worked out cheaper than anywhere else, but they don't do shielded cable or modern connectors. Polevolt seem to be cheapest so far.

The truck my mate's just bought is modified to the nines, was the previous owner's pride and joy, and it shows. It's worth more in bits than what he paid, and a really well-sorted truck to boot. On the flip side, my capri was fiddled with by an idiot, who put a 24v cossie engine in it - badly. I think I've spent nearly as much fuxing his fickups as I paid for it in the first place. But bugger me does it go, and put a grin on my face, even when it won't go at all. In fact, I'd probably do it again, even knowing what I know now. So, yeah, I buy modified things, and although it's rarely a good idea, I like it!

Anybody know of a good bulkhead connector for the loom? Basically, I want to be able to undo one connector, and lift the engine out. Well, one connector and some nuts'n'bolts'n'pipes'n'stuff... But not have to disconnect every last plug on the engine when it wants to come out. I've looked at military connectors like this but from a yank army truck that my mate has. Or maybe a bulkhead plate for the same connector as on the MS box, and an extension cable. Any clever ideas, or am I walking blindly into some pitfall or other, as usual? Thanks, Jake

There are two types of people in this world. Those who can extrapolate answers from incomplete data sets

Gone already!

Double inserts? Do you mean double depth?

Good thinking batman! I'll have a word...

I used some stuff that they use on oil rigs, got from someone on here (as it turned out at about 1/4 the list price... ), and as said above, it was unbelievably heavy! The 15l paint tub weighed about 35kg!!! I've also used the Teamac zinc-rich primer from a farm supplies shop, and that seems pretty good. It seems to be a hard and fast rule that good zinc primer = heavy (lots of zinc in it) = pricey. But hey, what's it worth to only do the job once? I've also used the Teamac zinc primer spray on bits of my Capri bodywork, and that has yet to show any signs of rust, and a Capri would rust in a vaccum...

Hi all. My dad has finally been "convinced" (read walloped with wooden spoon by mum until he agrees) to sell the LSE vogue in the garage. It's not entirely assembled, and it's not got a few bits of the drivetrain,coz I've had them many years ago It's a K-reg (not soft dash) There's no engine, gearbox or transfer box, exhaust, fuel tank or diffs. The body isn't actually attached to the chassis, from where we lifted it to take the engine, although it is on the chassis, and some of the front end is a bit taken-apartish. Not a lot though. The inner wings are rusty, and there's a few bits of the chassis that are flakey, but although I haven't gone over the whole chassis, from what I can see, it looks remarkably solid. There's a bubble or two on the tailgate. What I can see of the bodywork is fairly mint, in a fetching shade of deep green, and the interior is pretty good. Not mint mind, and I think the headlining is a bit on the saggy side. It's on old steel wheels, has been dry-stored for years, and from memory it was relatively low milage. Obviously it comes with reg and logbook, and is in North Cornwall, near Wadebridge. Anywho, Anybody have any thoughts on how much I should stick it in the For Sale thread for? To be honest, anything above scrap value is a bonus, 'cause that's where it's going if no-one wants it! There's probably other bits missing, but not much, and I can't see all of it, so if there's any specifics you'd like to know, ask away. Also, bear in mind I have to relay questions etc. down to the folks, where there's no moby reception, and the phone and interweb comes and goes with the weather, so don't expect too much haste. Cheers! Jake

Wow, that icon pickup is the mutt's nuts!

Alternatively, have a look at designs for rocket stoves/rocket mass heaters. Low-tech, and amazingly efficient! http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp http://www.inspirationgreen.com/rocket-mass-heaters.html

That and the fact that if the burner is shoving gas up the chimney, and so to replace that is pulling cold air into the building (through door/window gaps, under the eves etc.). If you draw your air in from outside, you're not circulating cold damp air around your workshop. If you make a cold air manifold, you can have air go in under the embers, and also above the heart of the fire to help burn off the gassified combustibles. Speaking from experience (I've made a few small/medium ones, and one monster horizontal 47kg one), gas bottle burners loose any residual heat as soon as the fire goes out. The one I made for my camper is twin-walled (two sizes of bottle, nested) and the gap between the walls packed with sand as a thermal mass. Works a treat! Use 2/3s of the top of the bottle for a baffle, and kink the chimney, you'll get loads of heat out of the hotplate and flue before the sides of the burner heat up. The more single-walled flue you have inside your shop the better, for heating, so angle the pipe across as much space as you can. And lastly, make sure your door seals are good, carbon monoxide poisoning isn't as exiting as phosgene gassing, but still not much fun. Hope that helps!

Celotex is a bit spendy, but really, really easy to use, and works a treat. Get some silver aluminiumised tape to seal gaps/joins etc. Maybe have a chat with a builder friend or something, as they can generally save you a packet on the celotex. There's also a foil/bubblewrap combo stuff that's effective while being only about 6mm thick for tighter areas, eblag is the place to find it. Get a cheap mastic stuff to seal up gaps in the structure before you start fitting the insulation. If you can put an insulation on the bottom of the floor between the joists before you turn it over it'll help a lot, and be better than the thin stuff you mentioned, and give you a firmer floor. Also, a curtain over the door, and insulating the door will help a lot. Shed doors aren't really designed to seal very well... Hope that helps.

+1 for slaves and a UFO. Works for me, every time.

When I was doing engineering at uni, I saw several computer simulations of fluid systems with and without vortex-inducing components. Many were based on the designs and ideas of Viktor Schauberger, an austrian engineer who had some amazing ideas, and built may provebly super-efficieant systems, for everything from plumbing to log transportation to river re-direction. His ideas all centered aroung spinning the fluid as it passes along it's course, and the use of vorticies to achieve his aims. Some of his later ideas are pretty "Far out" (although he was about 60 years too soon to be a hippy), but there's no disputing the efficacy of his work. I thouroughly recommend anyone with any interest in this feild to look him up. The computer simulations, and actual wind tunnel tests (Brunel has a supersonic wind tunnel!) consistently proved that inducing a vortex in a fluid running through a convoluted duct or channel resulted in smoother flow, and less energy required to push the fluid through the system. I'm not claiming that the Hyclone thingy is any good, just that a properly designed vortex inducer will more than make up for it's inital restriction (which should be minimal anyway, if it's properly designed) by making gains throughout the rest of the system. This isn't opinion, it's actual tested science, and I think that far too often beneficial idea babys are bunged out with the bathwater of badly made systems based on sound principles.

Have a look at this

+1 for norbar. I'm sure halfords are good, but will they be good in 20 years? I picked up a gurt norbar one from a car boot, which tested against my mate's snap on one is perfik, and it must be almost as old as I am. It cost me 12 squids.

Alochroming sounds cool! It self-repairs scratches, and becomes hydrophobic over time! Most days, the something new that you learn isn't that interesting, but not today, thanks for that. Now all I have to do is repress the urge to find all my ally bits and get them alochromated, at least until I've worked through the galvanising urge.

I have to say, my borg warner's been brilliant, fairly well abused and still great, and the fact it just works with no fuss is pleasing. I can see where you're coming from wanting this (although for £790 you could just buy another truck and pull yourself out!), it's good when things just work in the background. Although, when you get in your mate's wagon and forget that theirs doesn't do it all by magic, and get stuck, you look a bit of a tit...