Turbocharger

Here's the aforementioned list of willing victims available co-drivers. Any volunteers?

Will - you have the makings of a gorgeous dog there - two breeds with excellent temperament and character. Sadly, two breeds with a prodigious appetite too...

I'm with Will on this one - I spent quite a bit of my childhood with my dad while he indulged his hobby of military vehicles. According to current legislation it's a statistical miracle that I can survive travelling 60 miles in the back of a Humber Pig, three laps of Bovington in a Scammell Explorer or 25 miles (in the snow!) in the uncovered load bed of a GMC, huddled against the headboard trying to benefit from the engine heat that came up between the bed and cab. As far as I can see, kids are remarkably hardy anyway and knowing your love and joy is loose behind or beside you encourages safer driving - giving a positive benefit to road safety perhaps?

Right, my boss has just determined my vote by dragging me into work(!) on Saturday. Sunday 10am in Erlestoke then?

I thought the mighty ramp formula contained a bit that worked out the vertical height of the wheel from sin(rampangle) - the only reason you measure the distance travelled along the ramp is because there's more resolution in that direction, plus farmers, hicks and yokels can figure it out more easily when they're wearing wellies.

What is special about our Welsh Welder's setup? Is he running hockey sticks (as I suspect he is)? An RTI of 1000 is pretty impressive!

<stimulating debate> I'd do the rear seal, since they are prone to leaking and it's a pain to have to take the engine out. As Snr Mud says, the head gasket isn't too bad to do in situ.

Who fancies a day out on the Plain? Don't mind - Saturday or Sunday, 10am start and sandwiches for dinner. Vote up if you want to come along, then put your name at the bottom of the topic too so we can see who's interested.

You can pull my engine and do the rear seal as a practice run if you like? Yes, I'd do the rear seal on a 300Tdi, not sure about a 200 but while it's apart...

Just to recap - the event's on the Saturday? Not sure I'll have a bitch for it in that case - any volunteers? No need to run around remember, it's a Milemarker. At the moment it looks like I'll be on Trac-Edge tyres and I guess I'd better fix the winch by then too... HELLOOO panel damage.

Err, Nige - you realise that in the event of a nuclear strike, you might perhaps have to replace it? The rest of your 85mm-plated Ninety will live through, but that airbox looks like it's made from paltry 2mm steel? You're lucky it doesn't float away by comparison to the rest...

Uh oh. Too late to resign on the grounds of safety, I suspect

It's shaping up to be a goodun - has everyone still got a team-mate, or am I going to chug round on my own as BillyNoMates? It won't make a difference to my score, mind...

I shall be putting my tent up, unless I manage the same as last year and spend too long exploring alternative routes onto the railway line, arrive too late to see where the tent would go and fall asleep in the summer house... I'll have Mo's spare bacon if anyone's offering?

From a purely engineering point of view, I'd be concerned about that trayback. The chassis forms a (nearly) planar backbone for the car, and is heavy because of it. Weight can be saved by going tubular and passing stress through the cage higher up, effectively you use the roof rails to recover the second moment of area for the whole structure. My concern here is that the cage isn't able to bear that stress around the windscreen hoop (unless it's invisibly reinforced beneath the body, but it still can't be great) and the four tubes that form the 'chassis rails' on the conversion aren't really far enough apart to give the kind of rigidity that the car needs. I'd be willing to bet the torsional stiffness is well down, and won't recover much when the diagonal is put in the main hoop. Interesting idea, but IMHO you can't convert half the vehicle to spaceframe and leave half chassis-based without some nasty bending stress concentrations. There's serious weight savings available in a carefully-stressed full frame, but you can't go half and half.

Haven't we all...

Cat caught in your alloys?

Chris - do you have any feel for the current draw of the pump?

I heard of a problem with these at low temperatures?

No no, electrical is good since I've filled the easy space on the engine with winch gubbins. Does anyone happen to have specs on current draw and CFM? With one of these running continuously and a bus air tank hidden somewhere, I could have onboard air without the mess of moving the FEAD about.

Are these mechanically- or electrically-driven compressors? Are they belt-driven from the engine, if the former?

PCV - I work for First. I suspect it'll be the home study option - they're not going to give me time off work for it!! It doesn't sound too onerous, just something that has to be done. Thanks for the info, I might be back to you in time.

Aside from concerns about Nige adding quarter-inch armour plate to his forum, both proposals are supported wholeheartedly.

Speaking in their favour, if they'd made the wheel well big enough for a full size tyre, they might as well have provided a full size tyre. Well done for providing car-jacking services though. I found my girlfriend looked rather bemused when I suggested using a high-lift on her Hyundai to replace the wobbly scissorjack.

I think Les has hit the nail on the head here, and in my opinion that's how it should be.