Turbocharger

On a similar but opposite note, last weekend my dear father had screwed six railway sleepers together and wanted to stand them on end. TroddenMasses winched them to 'nearly upright' but found that the winch hook met the snatch block when they were at 89degrees, so I used the back of my Ninety to 'gently support' them while he sent my brother up a tree re-rigged. As Chris says, I wouldn't generically advocate LR panels as pushers or bludgeoners, but it does get the job done. If it was a suitable wall I'd be tempted to gently nudge it over with the rear crossmember, but I do mean 'gently' and 'nudge'.

You've bent my new vice already? And then cut chunks out of it? I'm having it back. Some good ideas there for a bench, cheers. I'll have a look around at what's free available to make the best of the job in a professional manner, and bash something together.

No, it's a normal unsprung not over-centre press-it-yourself clutch.

OK, but however the oil's getting in there it's not being injected in a high-pressure conical spray directed into the point of best swirl at 8 degrees BTDC so allowing for the ignition delay and giving best burn characteristics. It just happens to be around when the piston comes up and everything gets warm - I'll grant you it's not controlling peak cylinder pressure very well and I doubt the emissions are Euro2 compliant but why so much power? If it worked that well, the first diesels could have been carburetted?

How can an engine develop so much power just by burning oil which comes past the rings or via the valve guides, when a healthy 300 can only overcome the clutch sometimes using a thousand pounds worth of highly developed fuel injection equipment? Are we running engines on the wrong stuff? (V8 boys need not apply)

They were, and I advertised them for £cheap but no takers so I threw them out (and washed the back of the car) before moving house. This is why I never throw anything away normally. Anyone want a clutch pedal assembly?

Well, I've escaped the big smoke and rented a flat in Bristol. It has a garage and SWMBO is labouring under the confused assumption that it's to park her car so I have to fill it with stuff, quick. I want a substantial workbench to take a vice. None of the rocking and swaying nightmare while I'm trying to bludgeon something, it's got to be properly built. Sadly it has to be free standing, I can't tie it to the wall. Also, since it's a 6-month let and I may be moving at the end of it, I'd like it to disassemble for removal. While I'm searching for timber (or steel.. hmm), post up pics of your own workbenches or thoughts on what I should use. Steel top? Shelving underneath? Hints like "put a toe board in and let the workbench overhang it" or "make it just below elbow height" will be welcome, suggestions like "just carry on using TroddenMasses' garage" will be less so.

Before you shell out ££ on a new turbo it'd be sensible to determine what has eaten your turbine.

Any idea what the CFM and duty cycle on one of these is? I could have a half-assed air tool setup with one of these and an old truck reservoir, since the aircon slot on my engine is full of a poor attempt at a winch pump instead...

Jim, have you got any larger or close-up photos of the damage? Regards John

I've said this before - the TruTrac isn't a locking or limited slip diff. It's an open diff with a torque bias, so it will work just like normal but will 'bias' torque across the diff according to the limiting torque on the wheel with least grip. It's hard to explain in text and even harder in pictures but it's a beautiful beautiful thing if you can grasp the concept. I'd go for a TruTrac in the front, and indeed I have a TT in the back of my Ninety. It's transparent in normal use, but better when use is less "normal" Edit: it's hard to explain but I'm going to anyway. The two cross-shafts in the picture are one piece with a spiral and a spur gear on each end. Inside the diff (not visible) is a helical gear which meshes with the spiral. These helical gears are splined to receive the ends of two halfshafts, and the crownwheel drives the red housing. In a straight line with plenty of grip, the whole assembly 'tumbles' and drives the two halfshafts; counter-rotating torques are generated at each cross-shaft but the spur gears mesh with each other and resist it. When one halfshaft has no resistance (wheel in the air), this torque isn't resisted so the cross-shafts turn, the spiral slides across the helical gear and the diff behaves as an open diff. HOWEVER, when one halfshaft has wheel slip but a resistive torque (one wheel on tarmac, one wheel on ice is an extreme example of this) then the angle of the spiral means that the wheel on tarmac receives (typically) three times the torque that the ice-wheel resists, via the involute spirals. As I said, makes your brain ache but a clever bit of kit.

Maplin do a £15 multimeter with a thermocouple too...

I'm particularly loving the pink camo bobtail. It's not road-legal, and it looks to me like the (untriangulated) cage will hold the rear doors shut? That was somebody's £40k pride and joy once.

I've just realised I'm more interested in this forum than the Competing one... how things have changed. I must be getting old...

I'd be inclined to leave it boost-controlled, otherwise there could be low-speed high-boost situations where the turbo surges - it's too early in the experiment to blow your turbo up! I imagine the 'correct' answer is to create something which uses both variables (Megasquirt and a map?) but it seems a lot of effort for something that already works reasonably well.

As they said ^^ stay as we are with a good balance of involute spiral pressure angle tech and "My computer's bust". Indeed the latter rescued SWMBO's laptop and bought me another 12 months of forum time on her ISDN connection because of the undeniable improvement that LR4x4 has brought to her life. Carry on in the same vein please. So long as people are warned before they are banned and we don't reach a totalitarian state, it's fair. And don't ban me if I'm annoying, PM me instead.

Does it need to transfer quickly? A Efi fuel pump could run overnight and shift a fair amount of fuel - it doesn't take them long to empty a RR fuel tank on full chat!

Has it been offered to you cheap?

Through the wonder of digital media I'm sat on the platform at Reading train station, it's bank holiday rush hour at the first station outside London and there's a major music festival going on, but I just looked up and there's a little oasis of empty space around the smart young man in a suit, tapping away on his phone and laughing so hard he's having trouble breathing and may shortly soil himself. I had to take 5 mins so I could see enough to type a reply. Nige, you've brightened up the end of a particularly sh!tty week. Again.

Statistically speaking, bullocks. According to the stats we have say one fire a year - Si's had that so the rest of us can pour fuel onto hot engines with impunity*. I think sensible precautions are a good idea, but prevention is better than cure. *This is why I always carry a bomb on an aeroplane. What're the chances of two men on the same plane with explosives?

The problem with LRs is seeing over the bulkhead vent flaps. Starting again, I think the crucial thing to consider is your thigh position. If you sat in a more 'car-like' position with your thighs nearer horizontal, you could drop your eye height by 2ft or more, pull the roof right down and still see over the engine. A wider, shallower chassis will need to be much heavier for the same strength. A spaceframe could use the roof and chassis as the extremities of the cage and your bum could be nearly the closest thing to the floor...

I seem to remember Mohr's circle says that shear loading will be about half the strength of a tensile load, but then you've additional friction in the joint from the clamping force with how a JATE ring is mounted too so slightly more in reality. Since there are two shear planes with the way a JATE ring is loaded (one at each end), confusingly I'd estimate the maximum (yield) force at about the same as the yield strength of the bolt.

Bloody hell Si - that's all I can say. Looking at what went wrong and how quickly it can get bigger, I won't be buying a new extinguisher - I'll be checking every heavy cable in the car and P-clipping them so they can't rub or chafe. Better to prevent the fire than put it out... Best of luck with the insurers

Mine varies between 24 and 30mpg depending on use. Remember that the density of your diesel will vary by up to 10% through the year depending on temperature - so you need more/less quantity for the same energy. Ten percent is a big error factor in any calculation...

And 200mm x 200mm means you can get a whole diff carcass in one to hold it steady while you build it, for example. I will have one in my workshop ... when I have a workshop.