Team Idris

In 2015 you will de-value it by going S3.The only bit you really want is the speedo, so why not go with an extra electronic speedo ? It'll actually work ! I run a bycycle one. Then a capillary temp gauge and an oil pressure gauge. They can go anywhere and that covers the your needs.

52' is getting toward the right side of weird For the 2 1/4 you would need the right bell housing. Most people fit S3 box with this later engine. I have the later 2L engine and it hasn't the reputation for eating head gaskets. But the Siamese is correct for that car and I don't think they are evil on blowing through gaskets with normal show use.

I think rent free is the future. Mine is BOC. Darren thinks Argon is a bit splattery on Mig, but I can't run two. 'Have a go' is very tempting I think my 'tip' would be; to not dip the tungsten in the weld pool. I'm twitchy and drop concentration and then plop, in it goes There's 'dipper' and 'feeders'. Dippers dab the rod into the weld and the others feed it in constantly by working their fingers evenly as they weld. We have both at work. I'm neither. I have to stop to move my pinkies up the rod Pulse setting pushes and pulls the weld pool. It makes blending two edges easier. That is going to be a really useful setting! Looked at the 200 which is the next one up. I think it is more than 13 amp, which I could do, but it limits its use. The 161 really does seem to have all you would want to do stuff, pretty much anywhere ! It might take a spool mig gun as an option? (can't see why it wouldn't)

Sounds fair. Dodgy commutator then. I'll retract the crack theory as well. I know things have a crack start leading to disaster, but I think a com would just pop if there was any weakness from speed. Even heat seems out. One wire looks darker, but the RH is nice shiny copper.

That's got to places shot blasting would struggle

I'm thinking young's modulus of elasticity is force/area driven so double tube would halve the wall thickness needed, when the tube tried to break-out sideways under end load (if it took the easiest fail route). But the other way would be much stronger if the tubes were welded together. But it is still less efficient than one tube of equivalent mass. And the thinner wall tube will dent with greater ease.

That's looking a lot like the welder for me. Mig-Argoshield bottle is nearly empty and I have to weld ally at work. Which is free, but not very flexible on when I can grab a set. I could make some good parts if I could ally weld panels any time I needed it...........

An xkcd link, come on, I've got stuff to do. I can't spend hours reading that! I jest, I have no life.

Kept me amused for a bit That's weirder than Shotdeadinthehead.

OOOooh that was a bad tat Now it's hidden under an Ape

That tv program "tattoo nighmares" is hours of fun. Not just the astounding work they do to cover up the work of some meth head, but also the stories of how people got them in the first place. One guy had a girlfriend who was well into unicorns, so he got a tat of one. She dumped him the first time she saw it, so there he is with a big ass unicorn on his arm I laughed a lot

I started with a standard RRC in the 1993, got it going as a trialer in 95', comped it and then in 2005 made it into a winch challenge truck. All the time I've stuck with standard suspension height, because it is so much more reliable than increasing the shock length. What I'm seeing on my 72' is that on full drop, it's all pretty much on the limit of what rubber can do. I'm considering doing the equivalent on cranked arms on the back because it does sit a bit higher than normal and the bushes are at a queer angle. So that's kind of why there isn't a common lift-limit on forums, because standard is well on the way to being maxed out. But a 2" is normally acceptable if all the bushes and king-pins are right. The flex isn't coming from the shocks, as much as it is driven by the bushes, as you say. Really the only fix is a third top link. Once the bushes on the axel end of the radius arms cannot bind up it will be a lot better. You would get way better performance off road with a third link than longer shocks. (you could spend a long time fannying around with spring lengths and ratings) The last few years I put diff locks in and now drive it around on three wheels. I'm not even sure you need suspension with them fitted? They fix all the articulation issues in one hit.

The only thing I can say about johnny-joints is that anyone looking at giving a big off roader a good kicking, is using a re-buildable spherical joint with a good seal. And they look to fit the 'asks', but I don't know how you size them? The GP ones look expensive at first, but the brackets, joints and arms probably make £450 a reasonable buy? You could spend a good while nobbin' around making the chassis mount?

Yeh, but if your going to cock about that much, you might as well weld some ears on and go 4 link. It's more work, but once you have the grinder and welder out . . . . . . .

I put a drawing in the cad section if you want to replace the oil cooler housing with a take off plate.

I read that somebody slipped a new spring in, but it could be that they had to abuse the springs tension to do that? I only mention it as stripping a box is a fair job to do.

There was a part number mentioned on here about which part was the same pad but not from Simon? (Only cause it might be cheaper )

I think I would have to try a thicker oil just to see if it made a difference. Cheap test compared to stripping it back down. My RV8 3.5 oldy runs 20-50? And I can't think of anything that is going to be annoyed by thicker oil. Broken rings can tick like a tappit. Normally tappits are noisy at tickover when the pressure is low. I swear one of my new ones was acting daft for a while. I have got a fearsom exhaust blow when I rev and work it hard. Knew I shouldn't have put gaskets on The only ticking we had was valve timing so bad on a 2 litre side valve the piston was just clipping the valve. I think it would disintergrate a V8 overhead valve though.

Got an odd one for you I hadn't seen before. An oil powered spinner to seperate oil droplets from the crankcase breather. Made by Swedish filtration specialist Alfdex it runs at 7000 to 9000 rpm and generates 2500 g on the gas passing over it, seperating oil and carbon from the air stream leaving the engine. This emitions melarky is getting pretty technical

Exploding com is traditionally from over speeding. Maybe it had a brake fail at some time, starting a crack? Never seen it on a winch motor, so the fault could be specific to that motor? I'd say you were unlucky on that one.

The side does look like it's a bit hard bit to put right. If you can lay hands on some 50x50x3mm ally angle for a new corner post you can maybe G-clamp pull the corner out to it and bolt/rivet in place? But a new side is probably easier. If I could use shrinking hammer it would probably be a very handy landy skill

In a way it 'hinges' on how far up the rear wheel goes into the wheel well on cross axelling. If it makes the axel touch the bumpstop when the oposite side is at full shock travel, there is a lot of angle on that ball. But if it can't go full-flex due to spring rate then the risk is reduced. If that ball joint is the limiting factor, then that's a hell of a lot of leverage on the little feller

Beat it out a bit and skin it with thin ally via pop rivets. They catch it there so often on trees I'd go the other way and get a couple pieces of 3mm ally press-braked into a quarter pipe and rivet that on, for the whole length. (I'd say rolled, but that would be quite a long roller set).

I just fitted Gwyn's and it is a good unit with two rows of splines. But I can't help on the angle it will do, as I winch-challenge on standard length shocks.

Your other option is a nut welded to a strip of metal you can slip through a drain hole. Or, the easier one, a bolt welded to a strip of metal you can poke through a drain hole. Trying to fit something and line the nut up is hard, but a poking out bolt thread is a lot easier.