Turbocharger

Not sure about the headlight surrounds but I'm happy to cherry-pick ideas from it... I'd be interested to see how they've got the internal-external cage through the soft top if anyone wanders past one with a camera? Its something I'd love to add to mine if/when I go back to it as a daily drive but my cage causes headaches for the off-the-shelf hood manufacturers.

If the gearbox noise changes as you go up the gears (in T-box neutral) then its something at the back end of the gearbox or the input end of the T-box. I suggest you take the back cover off the Tbox and withdraw the input gear, then try your test again. You might find that one of the t-box input gear bearings is noisy, which is easy to replace and only slightly trickier to shim up properly afterwards.

I have a Ninety which I bought nearly ten years ago as a 2.5NAD and I've retrofitted a 300Tdi (and subsequently an auto box) to it. Part way along I had a 300Tdi manual Disco too, and I sold the Disco again because I preferred the Ninety. To me, the Disco was a LandRover which I couldn't bounce off stuff, scratch or abuse as heavily because it had plastic trim and shiny paint, so to me it was a second car without the advantage of fuel economy, good handling or speed.

I think I bent my ring spanner doing mine up with a piece of tube over it, and there was Locktite in there too. I haven't had any problems, but that's not necessarily a recommendation...

Si - do shout if you need another pair of hands to help exhibit, it looks excellent if it's half as good as the USA equivalent!

Bish is right, but did it contribute? Without being too specific to the case, I'm conscious that pattern parts could use a different casting but same-size pistons and pads, so the brake effort would be the same. We don't know enough about the vehicle, and I'm not sure if the jury did either - especially since the defence didn't present any evidence.

Indeed, and regular inspections reduce that risk, but we've all found things that were a surprise when looking round our vehicles. The frequency of the inspection just reduces that risk, not eliminates it.

If you don't drive it regularly on the road, the reliability suffers. We've all seen motors trailered to events, and they're often loaded up again at lunchtime with overheating / misfiring / dirt in the fuel / other, which you'd have to sort out if it is used regularly. Unless you've got some land of your own, there's no easy way to test these things before you're on an event 'in anger'.

With due respect Si, will your testing stand up in court? As you say, it's in the assumptions but how far does the call for due diligence on your part extend to considering how a part might be abused, overloaded, badly assembled etc? My concern would be that I produce a widget which has a safe working margin in my tests, but the court wouldn't see it that way when I'm stood in the dock, however much paperwork and computer simulation I can provide. This isn't an attack on X-Eng; I think you're leading the way in your open and accessible testing by taking a scientific and measured approach to product development, despite the overheads, in a market where agricultural 'rule of thumb' dominates. I just wonder if you have gone (or can go) far enough.

Today's events are certainly generating some interest: My thoughts are with Gresh and the family; it wasn't going to be a good Christmas for them and now it'll be worse. There but by the grace of God.

Forethought - hiring a car to put your jumbo spark machine on top of. Genius - firing up your spark-powered note generator in the car park of a Holiday Inn... What's their strapline? "Pleasing people the world over..."

There's two issues here - safe and legal. An SVA'd trayback which has ripped a brake line off in a morning's competition is more dangerous than a brand new showroom truck that's been ringed with a tax-free chassis plate. One's illegal, the other's dangerous.

As they said when handguns were banned: "if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have them".

I can see that becoming very wearing on a long journey...

But of course, even then the best, time-served or qualified chap in the world can have a bad day. We've all 'checked' at the end of a job that everything's tight and found the one we spun on by hand - it all depends which nut it is...

The more I think about this, the less suitable steel seems for this purpose. Streaky's brought some real-life experience to this thread (and I don't have any) but how's this for an idea: One of the TRIZ principles above suggests inflatables, such as filling bags with compressed air to expand their area. Sand behaves quite like a fluid, so burying sandbags (or pulling a large open-mouthed bag over a great distance to fill it up) and coupling a rope to them would work, but it'd be a lot of effort / need a lot of rope. Then I realised, the bag doesn't have to be closed, a one-sided bag (like a parachute) would probably work. All you need is to capture a large area of sand, such as a parachute would. The area doesn't need to be continuous for it to work, so a net would be a suitable canopy for the parachute. In my diagram below I've suggested a webbing net (such as they use on driver's windows on race cars, but larger). I've used round-section tubes to form a frame, and ropes would be attached at A, B, C & D. It would dig itself down if it was rigged properly, although there might need to be a cross-brace from A to B, and C to D to stop it collapsing as it slid underground until the sand was at level E-E. I've hidden the critical dimensions from my technical assembly drawing so Ze Enemy can't copy it, but I think it covers the principle in my head. Big parachute, big area, lightweight and collapsible for storage.

That's true, but is 'time served' enough? I've had guys working for me with whom a six-month shoulder-to-shoulder would be worth a lifetime of 'apprenticeship' under a "just get it out the door" bodge merchant. The fact is, there's no surefire way to show you're qualified as a mechanic on a CV - so who polices the work they do? An MOT is only to show that it's not dangerous on the day, not an audit of the quality of the work. For example, Scotchloks are the work of the devil but they'll pass an MOT all day long.

I'm in Bristol and, ok, it's damp outside but it's not really rained all day and there's no sign of flooding here... strange

... and there are plenty of people who have done likewise. Firstly, there's a big difference between veg oil and transesterified biodiesel from organic sources, and second, a lot of the issues with using bio are 'big risk' rather than 'continuous penalty'. The consumption will likely be 1-3% greater, which takes 30mpg down to 29.1mpg, which most people won't really notice, so beyond that there is just a risk of greater problems. This can be issues with starting or filter plugging in cold winters, biological problems with water content as microbes eat the oil or just a corrosion problem from rubber compatibility which means you eventually have big problems with gummed rings or siezed injector pumps. I'm not saying it's not an option (and waste fish oil has to be a viable source for sustainable oils) but just that there are more to bear in mind than just tipping it in the tank and forgetting about it. For me, the price has to be worth the extra maintenance checks, reduction in performance and potential for big bills.

I got a pair of overalls from them at a steam fair last year - can't remember their name but to help narrow it down, they were based in Devon or Cornwall, possibly Bude?

Err... no. LPG can give better power, because of a high resistance to knock. Biodiesel has lower calorific value, higher viscosity, poorer cetane value, high oxidation rate... oh, and it magnifies any water-in-fuel problems you've had but never suffered from before because it supports microbial bacteria, which form a paste to block filters and they turn the fuel acidic when they die. As you can probably tell, I'm a fan...

So we want a large area but low weight - it's a perfect TRIZ problem. Depending on how you define the problem, the blade can be seen as a moving or stationary object. Since we have to carry it around, I'd say it's a moving object. So - improving the area of a moving object increases the weight of the moving object. TRIZ matrix says: Anybody inspired to any useful ideas from these principles?

Plot thickens - new V5 turns up at my new address, so I got hold of someone at DVLA on the phone on a Saturday morning. I have to say, what a helpful chap. He gently hinted that it was my mistake, and that it's quite common. I'd put my new address onto the old V5 and as I'd included my name too they add me on as a new keeper, so my dear old truck's now up to 4 keepers, and my name is listed both as the current and previous owner. He's rectified the error and I'll have a new V5 before Christmas showing it back at 3 previous owners. Phew. Car un-scrapped.

I'm doing a lot of looking at this for work - it's what I do. First-gen biodiesel isn't necessarily what it's cracked up to be for three reasons: 1) it needs land, and it's easier to chop down forest than seek out reuse of land 2) where they do use existing land, it's generally instead of food and we need to feed Africa before we drive our SUVs around Europe and America 3) it doesn't burn as well as mineral diesel (higher viscosity, lower calorific content, poorer cold-weather properties) so you lose your MPG. It seems to have passed by the populace but the diesel you buy at the pumps is 5% biodiesel, and has been since April 2008. Some fuel suppliers have an ethical sourcing policy so they know that they're not driving land use change - have a look at Greenergy's biodiesel sourcing page. Personally, I've run 50/50 veg oil/diesel in my LandRover in the past because I feel I understand the risks involved, and the costs added up at the time to pay back for any damage it caused to the engine. Now, prices have changed so they don't, I'm back on diesel.

It's a moot point, the LR's in bits in the garage and will be until after Christmas (VGT turbo WILL be assembled, I just have to find more than 8hrs between getting in from work and going out again...) but I can see it would be rather annoying if it was my daily drive. I think I'll be on the phone in the morning, following it up with a letter. I'm particularly impressed that this pitfall means they write to your old address, so I wouldn't have seen the letter unless my old landlady had nothing to do except steam my mail open to see if there's any cash inside.