Turbocharger

Seems my signature has come back to bite me. I returned my LR's V5 to the DVLA to update my address ahead of the tax running out in December - filled in the new address, ticked the 'I've moved house and remembered to tell you' box and posted it out to them. Today, forwarded to me by my old landlady, I receive a letter sent to my old address: B*ll*cks. That's going to make it hard to tax it in 19 days, for sure...

I have to say, I'd have limited support for such a scheme. I know a chap who underslung the axles on his Series LR using bent threaded bar as U-bolts. The only way to ensure a quality job is done is with an independent inspection, and the MOT isn't sufficient. That's why we have the SVA, but it's applied in such a way that a- you can get round it, and b- if you don't want to present your vehicle, you can 'get away' with running it on the old V5 etc. It needs to be easier and more accessible to encourage people to get their mods checked.

When I spoke to the RoW team at 3pm on the Friday before the trip, they reckoned there was no TRO on Long Causeway (Stanage) after some damage to the causeway was repaired back in June. The "voluntary" TRO remains in force and encourages vehicles to head downhill to reduce damage and prevent the problem of vehicles meeting halfway.

You can tell from the smileys he's persuadable...

I suspect they're worried that the new studs might not be seated fully home, and any 'give' that they allow will mean that the new nuts come undone. If there's just two, that won't be disastrous and you'll notice a- at the weekly maintenance check that we all do, or b- when you spot there's two nuts missing. If you swap out all five, you could have the same experience again. My take would be to make sure that the holes and splines are clean, there's no surface corrosion on the back face and that the studs are fully home when you install them. Then, just check your nuts every day for a week, once a week for a month and then whenever confidence dictates...

Sounds like an immensely dangerous way to drop a car on yourself, methinks...

I looked at the price of resettable circuit breakers - for that price, if I had a circuit which needed constant resetting I'd look at the cause of the problem rather then spending out on a vehicle set of breakers!

Maybe it'll change when it's not in primer but I'm not sure about the "LR spectacles" effect. On others I've seen, the front skin disguises it well but it's a point of aesthetics anyway, it's built for functionality rather than beauty. I'm massively impressed with the level of quality and finish - do you want to do mine for me?

If it sounds like a stick in bicycle spokes then I'd look for exactly that - you could turn the engine slowly using the nut on the front of the crank and see if it makes the same noise - then you can track it down slowly while everything's quiet.

That's what he dragged out after a considerable time, but the wording is 'fouling so as to affect its operation' and neither he nor I could see that kissing it to remove paint was affecting the steering, so I landed a pass (and a flea in my ear about next year's test )

I sit on a committee with some of the VOSA policy chaps and their attitude is generally very sensible - trying to write rules which allow clever and interesting vehicles , exclude homebrew deathtraps and try to specify what is and isn't ok in a tight set of rules. Not such an easy job, I think they've done ok - although I'll hold my opinion until the bureaucracy of the public sector has been allowed to chew through the process...

But you didn't meet us for lunch on Saturday Chris...

Just to reiterate what was said above, spats are a C&U issue which could earn you a prohibition from a VOSA roadside inspector or an empowered traffic officer, but shouldn't be an MOT failure. However, you're breaking the law driving the vehicle to and from the test centre (especially since you've discussed it openly on an internet forum... ) There are a number of these idiosyncrasies - a vehicle will pass an MOT with no numberplates but it's obviously unacceptable on the road. Incidentally, mis-spaced or obscured numberplate (for example by dirt) is now a fixed penalty offence with three points , while there's no endorsable penalty for not displaying a numberplate, and just a £30 fine, although all of these vehicles will pass an MOT (so long as the rest of the vehicle conforms, obviously). The MOT tester can only fail a vehicle by referring to a 'reason for refusal to issue a test certificate', and I've found in the past that where there's room for an opinion, you can 'negotiate'. For example, my steering rod was bent and in the straight-ahead position it touched the channel section bolted to the diff that LR laughingly call a guard - it'd taken the paint off the trackrod so he failed the car, but he couldn't point to a 'reason for refusal' when I asked him, so he was forced to pass the car. (It's now got Sumo bars on, but you get my point).

I'll be very interested to see this - did you weigh it beforehand? The tube frames I've seen elsewhere haven't saved as much weight as I expected, but don't let me put you off!

Mine does that and always has, so if they're both broken please let me know My guess is that in colder weather the oils are all more viscous etc, so I need more throttle to get the same performance out of my piddly diesel engine. More throttle pulls the kickdown cable more, so it holds gears slightly longer (like it does when the engine's warm). I chose not to worry about it more than the more pressing issues, anyway...

I had a chap in a builders van meet my LR head on in a gap - cars parked to make a one-lane road which went around a corner so you have to pick your moment and set off. We stopped about twenty feet apart, both with cars behind us. The chap in the van dealt with the situation by blaring his horn, flashing his lights and then getting out for a rant at me. I blew him a kiss, his mates in the van particularly liked that.

I think ORRP relayed a caravan once, although that's probably not as awkward because it's got wheels. The forum is top again, you're good people. (Bish - if it falls through halfway, Trowbridge to Weston is walkable...)

Practical Performance Car magazine had a feature where someone had put a "very" electronic engine into an older car, and he'd bought a donor vehicle. His method was to start the engine and cut each wire to see which stopped the engine - when it worked he reconnected it and restarted the engine.

Again Nige it's your flimsy slapdash bodgery that lets the work down. Why can't you just take a little more time to do the job properly?

I don't know, I feel sorry for you Bish. People on here are so selfish, they're no help at offering advice or lending a hand at all. I'll tell you what, I'll step up - if you take one end I'll lift the other and we'll walk it to your place, so long as I'm not the one who has to walk backwards all the way. Where's Chipping wotsit?

I've found PMR is most useful on winch challenges etc for your co-driver to direct you, but CB is better for laning where you can direct convoys and take the p!ss out of your group (and other groups across the valley, as we found this weekend).

I'm not going to post locations because some of the lanes we drove won't stand heavy use, and posting on the internet is as good as advertising a free product. I'd recommend looking at the Peak District website for details of TROs too - several of the lanes I'd planned to drive are on their 'sensitive routes' list, and I don't think our days were any poorer for avoiding them. http://www.peakdistrict.org/index/looking-...cles-routes.htm If you want some pointers, drop me a PM.

Post up, I'm not ashamed and I've nothing to hide...

Aren't we a techy bunch? People reading the forum on their phones & PDAs, laptops in green lane weekend toys using GPS and mapping software, even computers running our engines. Where will we be in ten years, eh?

^^ If his technical gadgetry doesn't deliver and if it's not too amish for you, I could point you to the right parts of some paper maps...