Superpants

Powder coating generally works quite well on stainless- never had a mixed stainless/ plain steel part done though.

And for those of you who happened to spot a really useful item manufactured by the ACME company whilst watching Wile Coyote trying to catch his dinner, a full range of products can be found at: ACME Catalogue I'm really giving away my secrets here, but whenever I need to top up on the superhero equipment (which can be very useful when off-rooading), I just fly across the pond to: Superhero supplies

Not at the moment, But I'd put money on it changing at some point in the next 10 years......

With my slightly cynical hat on, NICEIC does seem to be heading more and more towards a CORGI type outfit- they seem to be nicely positioned to take on the mantle of being the approved body when the government eventually decides that us mortals aren't allowed to play with electricaltrickery at all in our own homes. I'd put money on part P being tightened further in the future to stop us doing practically anything. Maybe should re-train as an electrician, register and beat the rush now..... Looks like you let a good quantity of smoke go for your money

I read an article a couple of years ago about developments that were being done for the MOD (i think by Qinetiq) for off-road miliatry vehicles. The biggest advantages here with the electric drive were the extremely low noise output, and thermal signature compared to a conventional IC engined truck. If I recall reightly it was using the same basic idea of motors at each wheel station. As for recovering wasted energy, there are turbo alternators that can extract significant amounts of power from the engine's exhaust- simply a turbo charger that drives a high speed alternator instead of a compressor. These seem to have some limited use in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plants, but I have yet to find one that will fit on a conventional vehicle.

Actual regulations: Biofuel Regs

I've found the correct union spanner to be a definite improvement over a normal open ended spanner, but on really stubborn unions (most of them on the series 3 were), I resorted either to attacking them with mole wrenches, or cutting the pipe and attacking it with a stilson with the brake cylinder held firmly in the vice, followed by replacing the pipes. With the amount of pipes I had to buy, I probably should of bought a flaring kit and made them myself

My guess would be that it will be an anonomous venture capital company backed by one of the big financial institutions. Dull really.... Having said that maybe we should back Ray Mears to buy it

Index marine also do a similar range of parts to the merlin ones- Stainless marne grade parts. Try: Index Marine Found them pretty helpful and quick to deliver in the past

I will have to dig out my books at home for a fuller answer, but most metals have a fatigue limit, a nominal stress under which you can cyclically load the material pretty much indefinately, however this figure is very much lower than the yield stress of the material (I forget how much by), and I suspect we regularly exceed it, therefore driving fatigue of our parts. Above the limit the life will be reduced by cyclic loading in proprotion to the load (although not directly proportional). Therfore if a part is subject to a cylic load of a constant stress, then the fatigue life of the part is reasonably predictable, if however the stress applied varies (as in many real life cases, including halfshafts) then predicting the failure will prove extremly difficult. The effects are similar to the workhardening you have mentioned, and are driven by the microsture of the material (grain size, inclusions, dislocations, crystal structure etc), but I forget the details now as I haven't picked up my fracture mechanics books since I left uni! "This got me thinking of LR halfshafts, do they break with such frequency purely because they aren't specified for our needs? or do older ones break with due to "age"?" This will be a combination of factors- there will be an effect due to "age"- the fatigue life above, but I suspect (and can't be sure because I haven't been inspecting broken half shafts) that the failures we see are probably more due to a higher load than the tensile strength of the material- however I stand to be corrected by someone with more experience!

There is quite a lot of useful information on lockers, including the e-locker at: Eaton Diffs Click on Manuals for more information!

I have scanned in a few of the pages from the haflinger parts book, showing the major suspension lumps. I hope that they are of interest. They are indeed quite light duty compared to what we are used to on Land Rovers! Haflinger_front_hub_assembly.pdf Haflinger_front_suspension.pdf Haflinger_main_sub_assemblies.pdf Haflinger_rear_axles.pdf Haflinger_rear_hub_assembly.pdf

We had a really enjoyable day- so my thanks too! The disco came off relatively lightly as well... Mike (Team 17 co-driver)

Will- I’ll get the scans sorted out, however it won’t be until next week as the parts book is at home and the scanner is at work. Haflinger Technik have a number of ‘rusty’ axles and chassis that would be suitable to play around with. I have been thinking about building some sort of Haflinger based buggy for some time (hence buying the parts book). I preferred this over a Pinzgauer base largely due to the availability of cheap chassis components. One of the major advantages with the Haflinger is that it is so light, so has a very low ground pressure (something that doesn’t seem to have been mentioned so far (unless I’ve missed it)). I think you will struggle to source the parts at reasonable prices if you want to use Pinz parts- there is a limited supply of secondhand parts in the UK imported from Switzerland. Simon- Interesting to know why you dropped the air idea! I think I have some more comments to make, but it may have to wait until I have a bit more spare time to reply!

I'm afraid I don't know the colour, but the reason it is a bit shiner is that it is highly likely to be 'IRR CARC'- Infra Red Reflective Chemical Agent Resistant Coating. Basically easier to de-contaminate if it gets hit with chemical weapons! All of the paints fade over time which will have some effect on the shade, but even on new kit there are a few different base colours of green! I got the paint for my series III from Anchor supplies a few years ago, but there a a number of other places that stock it. I'd probably get the next lot from War Paint as they seem to know what they are talking about! (bought odds and sods from them at the War and Peace Show)

Although based around a substantially similar design, there are some significant differences between the Haf and the Pinz. The Haflinger uses a CV arrangement (and a second one for steering at the front) just outside the centre tube rather than the swing axle and double crown wheel diff of the Pinz. I have the Haflinger parts book and am willing to scan the odd page of the axles if it is of interest? Although briefly mentioned before, there are some interesting hydraulic systems around. The one that seems to be most developed is by Kinetic in Australia, part of Tenneco. Unfortunately the website doesn't appear to be working correctly at the moment.Kinetic I understand that this company have demonstrated their system on defender, but can't find any pictures of it on the web so far. It is listed that it is fitted as an option on 2004 Lexus GX 470 SUV if you could find a scrap one for parts! I am led to believe it will give similar benefits to an air system (eg semi-mimicing a beam axle on an independent setup if a cross linking valve is used), and if the correct valving is used then it can be used to tailor roll control. It is obviously less vulnerable to stone damage and probably more importantly needs a much smaller packaging space than the equivalent air system. If hydraulic accumulators are used, then you will also get a springing effect, so with the right setup could do away with both spring and damper. Whether we ever see this on a volume produced car remains to be seen, but could open up some interesting possibilities (cue tinkering from Simon )

Pah! You are going to need real mens tools if you want to build a real sandcastle One built during our August bank holiday pilgramage to West Wittering. Tools required- real spades and shovels, builders buckets and scaf planks. Now if Simon could come up with a digger attachment for a landy, that would be interesting- the 'X-Backhoe Loader' I'd buy one of those!

It's also another shining example of why I have given up watching ITV- It now seems to be worse at providing a well balanced, unbiased opinion than the Sunday Sport The part that got to me was the Pseudo-scentific 'test' showing the impact of a '4x4' with an 'ordinary' car. Quite clearly shown for maximum shock effect. Had this been compared with the impact of two 'ordinary' cars, I'm sure the view of the two people they were trying to 'brainwash' would have been they would much prefer to be in the 4x4 as they would have been safer! Oh well- couldn't expect much better really!

Now there's an idea......

ITV have decided that devoting an entire hour program to how awful 4x4s are tonight I quote ' Driving Me Crazy. John Sergeant rails against the 4x4 car, arguing that they create far more pollution than is necessary from a motor vehicle and that they are nothing more than a marker of social status'. Oh Dear- that'll be the same old arguments dragged out again about how we are killing the planet. I suppose I could always watch the other televisual highlight instead- 'The Man Whose Arms Exploded'. Maybe I'll go and do something useful instead like go to bed early..........

One of the main reasons for wanting to shut the alternator down is that there will be a return path between the +Ve output and ground. In fresh water, the resistance of the water is relatively high and so few detrimental effects occur. In salt water, the resistance is significantly lower. This has the effect that the water will start to electrolyse (split into oxygen & hydrogen), which are generally not good gases to have round the engine! The current flowing will also promote electrolytic corrosion on the alternator/ engine block.

Roofing could be made of traditional cedar split shingles- eay to apply, last for ages and so 'in' this year with self-builders- just look at how often they turn up on grand designs....... Straw bale building could also work and would give a wonderfully cushioned landing in a roll-over

Thanks- useful to know who makes it!

Try this as the larger of the range Ryders XR15HD They do look pretty similar to the Warns.