Turbocharger

Tdi Bosh upgrade Bristol - reads like a list of keywords for me. Tell me more Jase?

Her indoors calls mine "Magnet" because whenever I go to a show, stuff sticks to it and I end up bringing it home.

I thought about swapping side to side, but I reckoned that it could wear them out even faster. If they're wearing funny, the last thing I want to do is put more rubber in the space that's worn away quickest...

"No no no, I said wait until I'm on the quad before you recover it"

I'll be wearing any badges on my back so people know who it is that's running away from them... It's a good idea but we'll look like a right bunch of Charleys in the pub with our name badges on. The townsfolk will think we've escaped from an AA meeting (or in our case, maybe an RAC group-discount session).

Which means your vapour goes into a blow-up girlfriend?

I usually aim at 30-32psi when I'm airing them up, they have to go down to ~4psi to get it into the garage.

[Light dawns] I have a Trutrac in the rear axle. Someone put me on the stupid pile please? Next time I've got the wheels in the air I'll see if it's seized (the tyres do squeal when I'm doing tight corners in "squealy" car parks, the kind where even Fiestas make a gentle chirrup) but otherwise it's well behaved on and off road, so I'll live with it as a 'feature'.

Sikaflex? That's a good one, and as you say, impossible to spot from below. At least you know what it was, it's not too expensive and you're most of the way there already. As I said, it's important to make sure it's lined up exactly parallel to reduce the amount of flexing it has to do. Mine had a 3mm bracket trapped between the bellhousing and flywheel housing, hence the radical patterns in mine. To be fair, if it does another 140,000 you can't complain too much

They were a bit odd when I got them, but that was mostly shoulder wear and they're on the other way round. I'd expect the old wear to have cleared up by now. Jase - you have a strong point there, but wouldn't that be wear on the LH (outer) shoulder? It's a diesel, I need to "carry speed". I'm not deeply concerned, I suspect it's just the raw torque of my asthmatic Tdi through a power-sapping auto but if somebody says "you've clearly got your gismo out of kilter" then I'll make the necessary adjustments. I suppose I really want someone else to say "that happens to me too"

My tyres seem to be wearing half the tread blocks, such that at low speed (rolling around the yard outside my house) some of the tread isn't even touching the floor. Now, I've just sorted out the tracking at the front (tyres 1" further apart at the front than by the trackrod ) but the rears look like this, picture taken from behind (fnarr fnarr): The white shows where the tyre picks up dust off the concrete - the trailing half of the central blocks and every other shoulder lug aren't touching the ground each revolution. Obviously under driving torque the tyre is flexing and pushing the black patches down onto the road, to such an extent that they're wearing faster and then sitting easy when I'm just chugging round the yard on idle. Question is, why? For the beard-strokers, they're 285/75R16 BFG MTs on LR Freestyle alloys on a Ninety, I'm 11st wet through and this season I'm mostly wearing overalls.

Exactly the symptoms of my failing flex plate - it rattles at idle under no load because the cyclic speed variation of the engine is greatest - the accel/decel becomes less significant at higher speeds. Mine had fractured around the centre bolts but most of the noise was from the complete shear around each of the four bolts into the torque converter. On my car this was caused by misalignment from poor installation although it must also have the correct gap to the flywheel so it might be worth investigating why yours has gone pop. Mr Ashcroft has an excellent guide to installing these if I remember correctly. Definately best to fix sooner rather than later though - it could damage the torque converter face if you let it get too bad. I found by dropping the props I could shove the gearbox back a few inches and slide the plate up into the gap. Some pics for your perusal. One of the fractures around the edge bolts told me it was time for the big yellow taxi. The whole plate after I'd wrestled it from the car. Closeup to show it wasn't just the edge bolts that were having a bad day out.

Mine's scratched to hell too, so I thought about replacing it. How much is a new screen, really? You could even take the opportunity to upgrade to a heated screen too. Of course, thinking about it is as far as I've got so far...

Your photos look amazing. If I could afford the flight (and if my Spanish was better) I'd love to see South America. Doesn't look hopeful for the next few years though. Your photos show an amazing variation in landscapes and scenery - thank you.

Thanks chaps - simplest explanation has hopefully solved it - he says:

This is something I'd not thought about or considered. I'm pretty sure I've got no monitoring at all. As far as I know there's nowhere on the auto cooler lines to mount a sender - I think the hydraulic side is a finely tuned bespoke mix of what he had in the shed at the time. Any idea, diagrams or pictures for where I should be looking? More importantly, how often should I expect to see an overtemp? What can I do about it? ie get into 4th with the t/c locked and drive, or slow down (less power dissipation) / speed up (more air flow) / stop altogether and wait for cooler times? I might work a little harder to put a sender in although my water temp's playing up too... In fact, the rev counter under-reads, the speedo overreads, the turbo gauge sticks - the fuel gauge is the only reliable one!

A mate has a Series IIA which he uses as a mechanical wheelbarrow and mobile winch around the farm and environs. He recently stacked his daily drive, so the LR has to step up duties. He took it out for a run, and all was well. After stopping at the shops, he got back in and the hydraulics seemed to have gone 'solid'. He doesn't think it's a problem at the pedal end, it feels 'hydraulic'. The brakes didn't seem to be locked on (although he'd had a lack of power climbing a hill earlier that might have been dragging brakes?) but obviously he's not confident about driving it. It's not servo-assisted and he's recently replaced the master cylinder to attempt to cure this problem, without success.

Any idea where the pinout would be on the box? Mine's retrofitted into an early Ninety and I've no temperature monitoring at all. Bish's temperature sender idea had occurred to me, but that's as far as I'd got. So far - no problems.

There's a light?

The 'turbo radiator' is called the intercooler. Using a gentle hose and perhaps a soft brush are the best way - if you use too much pressure or force you'll bend the fins (not good) or distort the tubes (worse).

Overrun cut off is how most modern injection systems work, and as said above ^^ this means you get 999mpg when coasting and ~100mpg if you slip it into neutral .. BUT .. while you're on overrun you're using the vehicle's momentum to run the alternator, PAS, aircon etc and to overcome the engine friction, so you won't travel as far before you've got to put it back into "expensive gear" and stomp the loud pedal again. Stop-start will save around 10% of the fuel consumption of an urban bus (don't ask how I know this) and next to nothing on an inter-urban coach operation. Kinetic energy recovery is the way to save your fuel, a la hybrid. If you can find a medium to sink and source energy efficiently there are big savings to be had. At the moment the quickest way to sink kilowatts out of the car is through the brakes. Electric hybrids store some energy but the big issue with them at the moment is that, the faster you try to store or return power, the lower the efficiency - and they add weight. If it was 100% efficient all the time you'd store all your energy from a 70mph stop, wait a while (eg road junction, roundabout, traffic lights) and then return that energy to the car, burning no extra fuel. I'll knock my car into neutral going down a hill, but I'm not turning the engine off! The best way to improve your mpg isn't with gadgets and extra switches, it's through efficient driving (drive as if you've got no brakes). The biggest single route to reducing your fuel bill is by reducing your mileage.

... but that fuel needs air to burn, so there comes a point when you can't pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Plus, excess smoke will be found with too much fuel - you might not notice this in the Falklands with a permanent 80mph wind.... VGT (or a smaller turbo) are the only routes to better low-rev and transient performance - although a smaller turbo will choke earlier and you'll have to restrict your max power.

Has it got 5 main bearings? If so that'd point to it being a later engine retrofitted - the question then is "how late?" and as Tycho says, I think the 90/110 engines were very similar to the last of the S3s. Detox is their way of saying 'power reduced to scrape through the emissions regs'.

If you increase the scrub radius AND the tyre size, the centre of rotation in the contact patch (which is how you 'feel' steering feedback) will be about the same, so no need to alter the swivel preload. Given that we're not looking at a fingertip Lotus Elise experience, I'd stick with standard settings.

If it doesn't tread on any toes I'd intended to take my group straight across to Sheffield to head down Stanage Edge and then work back towards Ashbourne for the evening. I could head out in a group of three and you could join me up there if that'd suit? If other groups are starting from Ashbourne in the morning then we'll be well spread out around the district - responsible laning. Does anyone know if the lane across Roych Clough is still legal? Cheers John