BogMonster

I got somewhat p***ed We had a BBQ in the middle of nowhere... a whole lamb didn't die in vain... drank waaaaaay too much and drove home somewhat gently (no laws in this part of the Islands before anybody gets grumpy, nor is there any traffic ) seem to remember the 130 passing me in midair at one point but I didn't get a photo of that [hic] Merry Christmas

Nige you must have to be in really deep s&&t to have to use a snatch block with that winch of yours

There are two different sorts of Discoverer STT (the mud terrain) and two different patterns, but both called STT!! I have just ordered some of the new ones at work because they are available in a size to suit the 17" rims on the Discovery 3s and some people seem to want decent tyres on their vehicles ... got them from Sinton Tyres who were the best (trade) price from a number of enquiries, but as Sinton are supposed to have the importers rights on Coopers, that didn't surprise me. The trade price wasn't cheap (BFG sort of money) but I couldn't fault their service, I had an answer to my email in less than an hour and the order was ready for despatch the following day. The "new" STT is a similar pattern to the Goodyear MTR, not as chunky as the "old" STT. No feedback yet because we haven't got them yet - but I did a lot of digging on Coopers before we ordered any and the writeups they get from Australia all seem to be good in terms of treadwear and puncture resistance, which were the two things I was looking for. However a lot of people here used to use the "old" STT pattern about 5 years ago but nobody seems to any more, but I don't know if that was down to bad experiences, or perhaps just the fact that my Kumhos and Grabbers were cheaper (gratuitous self-plug ) - all I notice is that you no longer see them on vehicles round town, and there used to be quite a lot (probably about 40% of the vehicles in town have MT's of one make or another fitted ... even some of the taxis!!!)

Not wishing to be unduly pedantic but I hope they mean SWL 8000kg not breaking strain, or you're going to be on pretty thin ice with an 8-9000lb winch never mind anything bigger

Nige, I think you are missing the point The root correlation of the wibble multiplied by the tangent of surface density squared by the coefficient of hydrodynamic resistance is the critical element in this calculation! Another problem lies with simulating the effects of a multi-conductor copper wire in manufacturing a snorkel. An intake system made up of 600 different bits of washer tubing cable tied into a bundle, is going to look frankly a bit silly not to mention being 2 foot across and therefore causing you to crash because you can't see where you are F going most of the time I've got some old galvanised gutter downpipe somewhere I think.... Alternatively why don't you just grind the top off the plenum and just make all the trumpets 3 foot long? But it will still stop when it gets wet

Had a very similar thing on one of the 110s at work the other day. Prepared for the ££££ of a new steering box and it turned out it was just the steering damper was sticking/seizing - you would go round a corner, go to straighten up and suddenly find the self centreing disappeared which led to some "F!!!" moments as the vehicle attempted to climb the kerb and mow down any nearby buildings

Looks like another hideous silly-wheeled concept to me, a bit "Judge Dredd's taxi"

Didn't you get a bit wet going from Australia to Croatia?

First class - thank you And happy Christmas too

Heater plugs would be my guess. The 300Tdi engines start fairly well with blown heater plugs for most of the year but once it gets down towards freezing, they will start in the mornings but as yours is doing, they take a few seconds of cranking and then come to life with a bit of juddering and farting and often a fair bit of smoke (from the unburned fuel when cranking over).

Picture of D44 stainless one here

Good idea. You could start with that 2.5MB avatar so that those of us on dialup don't have to F download it!!!!!!

Really? Pictures? Can't help with the question tho...

I've got alloy because it looks prettier something about milled alloy that is just ... ooh ... excuse me I have to go to the lavatory Aaah that's better Also I seem to remember the stainless ones are about twice the price and as far as I could see the only real advantage was that they don't wear as quick in high angle pulls, which are not the sort of pulls I do (not a mark on mine from the rope, so far) most of my winching is pretty much straight ahead.

Well poo to you with nobs on then 02 I call the skin on the outside of my wires, "insulation" anyway this is all getting a bit tetchnickel for me One way you could do a basic check would be to put a vacuum gauge on plumbed in immediately on the upstream side of the throttle plate. You could measure a stock engine's vacuum depression at high throttle openings (which will give the pressure loss through the intake system), and then easily measure the change with any particular design of snorkel, which would be a pretty good indication of how much air was being strangled from the engine I would think? You could easily F around with the design then until you minimised the pressure loss.

I forgot the single most essential thing. And this is serious in case anybody thinks otherwise. Bog roll.... It is bad enough having to dig a hole and sh&& behind a grass bog, without then having to try and wipe with a handful of grass as well.... I always keep one in the 90, sealed in a poly bag for emergencies!

I can't do any sums to back it up (forgot the content of my fiziks A level years ago) but I think pressure drop in a pipe due to internal friction etc probably follows much the same theory as voltage drop in a wire. So a short length of 3" tube will have a certain pressure drop, make it 10x the length and it probably increases quite a bit, though whether 10x or not I don't know. So in the same way as you can shove 240V down a wire through up to about a mile or so, if you try and do it for 10 miles there's a lot missing at the other end. In the electrical model you can increase the wire thickness (reduce resistance) and/or bump up the voltage (a bit like increasing turbo boost) but in a naturally aspirated engine all you can do is minimise the losses, i.e. make it a bigger pipe (less resistance per unit length) to try and get as much as possible of what goes in, out the other end without a pressure drop. An extreme example would be to make an engine like a 400KV power line - in theory you could feed Nigel's Eales through a drinking straw if you put about 100 bar boost on the end, though the turbo lag might be a bit epic Oooer that nearly sounded as if I knew what i was talking about now I need to go and sit down

285s will be fine on a 7" rim and anyway 16" rims that are more than 7" wide are like hens teeth unless you go for expensive ones like Mach 5s which I guess you could probably get made as 8x16? - the only other one I know of offhand are the 8.5x16 Compomotive AT alloys and some of the Discovery 2 alloys which are no good to you anyway. I run 265/75R16 on Freestyle alloys most of the time and they touch the radius arms (just) on full lock (the vehicle was originally fitted with 205s). However, until I lifted the suspension, as I already said they also touched the top of the wheelboxes in the back on full articulation (wheels off ground kind of full artic) so 35" would hit the wheelboxes an inch and a half sooner....can't see how offset will help you here though! 265/75R16 are about a 32x10.50R16 in the old money. Having seen Simexes the tread width looks to me to be bigger than most "normal" 10.50s (the 10.50 is of course section width not tread width, tread width of a normal 10.50 is only about 8-9" IIRC) though I never got around to measuring them.

PMSL! I had thought of the revs thing but in practice how often do you rev a V8 over 4000rpm in normal use? I find if I'm in a big F hurry keeping the Disco between 3000 and 4000 it goes like &&&& off a shovel, over about 4500 all you really get is more noise so I don't bother. Also I think V8s sound best as they pass through about 3500 with foot nailed to the floor Another thought: because the cross sectional area of a pipe increases as the square of its radius, a 3.5" pipe is actually 36% bigger in x-s than a 3" pipe - so you can have a useful increase without having to look like an oil rig!

So if you break a halfshaft at all, the whole wheel comes off? Where is the C-clip retaining the whole lot - inside the diff? (I'm not familiar with the design)

Ooooh As it happens I have just started loading things up for Christmas Jackall 2 x alloy bridge/jacking boards 10 metre 24mm nylon tow rope Milemarker on the front with 10mm Dyneema and a wireless remote (need that to plough in the Kittygripper when alone) T-Max hand winch for rearward/upside down/any other unclassified disaster recovery KittyGripper plough ground anchor Tube and pin military ground anchor Winch extension line (Dyneema) About a dozen shackles of different sizes, mostly proper rated ones Snatch block Hook chain Master ring (allows a winch hook to go onto a NATO hitch etc) Big F off wheelbrace Extra spare wheel Torch Ibuprofen (nothing worse than trying to unstick yourself with a stinking headache) VHF radio in the vehicle, and often a handheld one too Wellies Waterproof coat Spade Sledgehammer for ground anchor pins 3 x cases of beer and 1 x case of wine Toolbox with screwdrivers, adjustables, mole grips, propshaft tool, cable ties, duct tape, insulating tape, crimp connectors, a few bits of wire, pliers, chocolate block connectors 1/2" square drive socket set Spares I have just packed up for this trip include: 5L engine oil Fuel filter Wheel bearing kit Propshaft UJ's Rear shocker bushes (the new ones have an irritating habit of wearing out rather suddenly!) Tubeless tyre repair plugs Spare fan belt Spare belt for the hydraulic pump on the winch No trees in this neck of the woods hence no axe/saw etc required but 2 ground anchors required instead I tend to cart everything around most of the time when off road as the times I have been stuck and unable to get out have always been the times when I thought "oh well I'm not going far and it's quite dry so I won't get stuck today..."

Er yeah but I can't remember where! some Dutch or Belgian site had the parts cats on in PDF format IIRC but I don't have the URL...

I have a Milemarker on a lightweight mount with plasma so that probably isn't much use to you? I guess it will be a lot lighter than an 8274 with a steel cable on a full bumper. However I currently have standard 90 front springs but with the ANR2938 isolators fitted top and bottom this gives about 0.6" lift which is about right for that weight. Can measure if required.

Just a thought (not sure whether it stands up or not but the engineering types will no doubt pitch in!) Presumably a 2.5 litre turbocharged engine running 1 bar of boost, uses as much air as a 5 litre engine running at the same speed which is naturally aspirated? Twice as much air in each cylinder but half the displacement equals the same amount of air going in per revolution, surely? If so then anything that will happily feed a 300Tdi (e.g. a Safari) will presumably be OK for a V8 up to 5 litres....? IMHO anything will give "some resistance" it is just "how much resistance" that is the thing. I'm going to sling my Rebel snorkel in favour of a Safari which is on order and arriving in January, but that is mainly for waterproofing reasons. I have noticed, though, that if you take the front off the air cleaner can (i.e. bypass the snorkel and intake ducting completely so it is sucking air straight into the filter) it does seem to have more power.

Interesting I was thinking about a gas steering damper but I don't think I'll bother if that is one of the "side effects" - I've got enough steering grief to contend with already what with clonky steering column bearings and a clicky indicator trip