SORNagain

When I fitted braided hoses to my RRC the pedal travel reduced significantly. Might help for you too...

You can tell the difference between an overheat and a flame out by listening to the fuel pump. An overheat will stop the fuel pump immediately, where as with a flame out the pump continues to click for a few seconds before the thing gives up....

Definately with you there!

Well... I can sort of see their point actually. Most of the opposition were retired older people, who would struggle to walk down deeply rutted lanes, and the country should be accessible to them too. These same people do have *alot* of time to write letters though, which was why I was quite impressed by the park authorities refusal to bow to pressure from the very vocal minority. Hopefully there will be a balanced reaction where they don't start closing all the lanes regardless (which seems to have happened in my area.) Thing is, the resurfaced lanes lanes that the park authorities opened for all users are not the sort of lanes I would want to drive down anyway. It looked like a cobbled street - where's the challenge in that!

I don't think the body of the heater is earthed to the heater electronics. This is to prevent a fortuitous earth provided by the mounting allowing the heater to operate without it wired properly. I have one at work and can check if it helps, but I don't think it has anything to do with your problem.

Thats got to be it - and thermal expansion of the fluid made them come on harder and harder. They didn't adjust the pedal travel in the MOT did they - rendering your brakes a sealed system?

Hey that looks like a total winner! Definately going on my Xmas list.....Thanks

I think that is a good idea. It could be that the load of the lights is 'lifting' the ground of your internal wiring - including the ground of the gauge. I'd check the ground strap between engine and chassis. Edit - FF said it better!

Anyone know a cost effective crimper for the SB175? I have used one of these before... http://www.barden-ukshop.com/heavy-duty-crimping-tool-for-cable-terminals-10mm2-to-120mm2-1257-p.asp ...and its OK (just) but was wondering if anyone has used something better. (Don't think it does 120mm^2 despite the description!) Or am I better off with a bit of solder bar and a blow torch?!

What change in voltage does one of the graduations equate to? I would expect some change in battery voltage due to the indicators when the engine is off, but very little when the alternator is charging because the regulator should keep it constant. So i guess this points to a bad connection of some kind, but whether it is a bad earth or something else it is difficult to say. What connections did you disturb when you fitted your eberspacher? Does it crank as vigorously as it used to?

Looking at my old one it doesn't look like it is replacable... But that Ebay one looks like a good way to go. Thanks chaps!

Make sure your charger is a regulated one if you plan to leave it on all the time, otherwise you will cook your battery. Most car battery chargers are not regulated and will cause your electrolyte to gas off if left on continuously....

Surely there should be a distinction between petrol and diesel here? It was my understanding that petrol always pressurises a sealed container - and it is called the 'vapour pressure'. I have a jerry can for petrol and one for diesel - alway pressure in the pertol one....

Boothy, I know that on some high speed motors they alter the timing angle on the brushes to optimise speed in one direction - I think it helps compensate for for the inductance of the armature or something. Dunno whether they do it on winch motors though. That's the only way I can see you might get different performance in either direction.

I'm glad I am not the only one who baulked at the £40 price tag! I like the plastic bag idea or maybe a tennis ball perhaps..... I am beginning to think that as the orginal flap is essentially a hinge with a spring loaded bit of rubber on the bottom, it would not be difficult to fabricate something. If I make it like a padlock hasp I can lock it up too. Then I can use the 40 sheets as a down payment on a tank of fuel....

More turns of thinner wire on the 24v motor, both on the field windings and the armature. I guess you could swap them just to diagnose the problem but you need to keep them matched up for actual use as Si says. Are the brushes free from dirt or grease? I have had brushes where the gunge prevented the springs from pushing them in contact properly, and oddly this seemed to manifest itself more in one direction than the other. Are gaps between the segments on the comutator clean?

I have tried testing these coil packs in this way before - it didn't work either. I was just dabbiing a wire on the terminals. The problem was that you can't break the flow of current cleanly enough this way - you get an arc when you break the connection, which gives a slowly decaying primary current and no spark! I found an old ignition module kit which had an output stage that was a IGBT paralelled with a 250v zener. Worked great using this. You could try putting a condenser off and old distributor across where you are breaking the connection. This will allow the arc to extinguish and hopefully solve your problem. At the time I couldn't believe that dabbing a wire on the terminals didn't give me any spark at all - after all the spark you get on the wire looks tiny - but using the proper driver completely this solved the problem for me. Hope it does for you.

Hi Folks, I parked my '74 RRC in a field on a farm for a few months when it failed its MOT, not realising that the cows would use it as a scratching post.... The fuel filler didn't have a key of course, so not only did I end up with a fuel tank full of water, but also a broken filler cap. Now I am getting ready to put it on the road again, I am not relishing spending £40 on a new one. (on Ebay - http://www.ebay.co.u...=item4aaf336c60 - sure they were 25 a few months ago!) On close inspection of the filler neck, it looks like it is pressed to accept some kind of bayonet fitting cap. Anyone know if there is a cheaper cap I can get to fit this - preferably with a key? Thanks in advance, Rob

No kidding. I have found the ratings for different kinds of cable very misleading: If you buy Tri-rated swichgear cable the stated current rating is based on the maximum dissipation of the cable. If you got 240 volts to play with, losing a few in the wiring is no big deal. A bit different when you have only got 12 though! Automotive current ratings seem to be based on a standard volt drop of 0.15 volts per m. More conservative, but far more sensible for the application. It does suggest though that there is probably far more lee-way in fuse selection though, because under fault conditions cable dissipation is what you worry about.

Hi Tris, Looks like there is plenty of scope in this project...in fact there may be too much. Don't know how long you have to complete it, but be careful how much you take on at the start. Unless you are definately going to display the battery voltage and current on the handset I suggest that bi-directional communication may not be necessary. If you select the correct RF modules at the beginning you may be able to add that functionality later, by which time you will already have a demonstrable project under your belt. As already mentioned the safety aspect is important and I think could be catered for with a simple algorthm in both the transmitter & receiver - like a pseudo number generator or CRC that will enable you to validate the commands properly. A nice real world problem this. I have virtually no experience of operating winches, but one of the things that I like the idea of is PWM control of the winch motor itself for slow starts etc [not even sure if this sort of thing would be handy in practice?] There are some amazing MOSFETs out there these days, and they are not very expensive. Put a 10 or so in parallel and you really can control massive currents. You will need some serious free wheel diodes too, but if you use contactors for controlling the motor direction you will only need one bank for the speed control. 'Don't take on too much' I say, but then start raving on about speed control... Sorry about that. Hope it goes well.

Hi, I had one of these welders once and instead of having a gas solenoid inside the welder, there is a simple valve in the torch. The problem might not be the amount of gas flowing when you are welding, but rather the amount that flows when you are not! I seem to spend 99% of my time preparing stuff and only the other 1% actulally welding, so even if this valve is leaking by a tiny amount that might account for your excessive consumption.... You could try leaving the bottle disconnected until the moment you are ready...?

Hi Dave, I have had some experience of this and it can be a tricky problem. I am guessing your LED lights have more than one LED in them? If there are a few LED's in series then most of the battery voltage will appear across the LEDs and only a few volts across the current limiting resistor. Raising the voltage by a couple of volts then leads to a large increase in current which is probably what blew yours. If you can take the lamps apart, the best solution is to separate the the long series string into smaller strings in parallel, each with its own resistor. You can use a 7812 regulator as suggested, but these have a dropout voltage of 2 volts which means they do not regulate until there is 2 volts across the regulator. OK at 14 volts (just), but at 12 your lamps may be dimmer than they were before. No harm in that though if it is acceptable....

Hi Folks, Just signed up to this forum, and you guys have made my day. I have a 2 door '74 classic and I have also been replacing my sills, (but taking much longer to do it!) Didn't really know what I was doing, but I also used 100x60 box section and am glad to see my repair looks at least something like both of yours....which is a great relief to me! Just hope the doors will still fit. Great posts, great to see the pics. Thanks, Rob