sean f

Flew in off the rig last night going vis Sumburgh and down south this morning, now hopefully get a couple of weeks off. Flying offshore for nearly 30 years with flights to get to and from Aberdeen or other parts of the world and often staging through the Shetlands you do enough flights that thing happen eventually!. I did hear they never had any problems with the 225's anywhere else but don't think they ever worked out why it was happening in the North Sea but not anywhere else, I assume the parts would have all came from the same source, there was a strong push from the work force to get rid of them. Trust was lost when it was announced they were safe after the first crash then another went in, announced they were safe again, another went in, after that no one believed them again. I have seen aircraft out of action on helidecks for various reasons, mostly bird strikes, always involves a bunch of equipment and a tech coming out by boat even if its just to strap it up for craning off, don't think anyone likes the billy pugh still have them out there. Never forgot when a rig near us had a bird strike and in the evening meeting the American oil company rep asked if we had any bird deterrents onboard and the Scottish toolpusher replying "yeah a roustabout with a ***** great stick" that evening we had a roustabout on the helideck swinging a broom above his head, never worked they took of circled around and then once he left landed and when back to sleep. I did wonder about the S92's we still mostly use them but are also using various AW models on some routes.

Not had anything quite as exciting as Aeroflot seems to be but over they years been on a few dodgy flights in the UK. On the way home staging through Scatsta Airport in the Shetlands (now shut) flight to Aberdeen, taxied to the end of the runway, pilot revved the engine and one started making banging noises, throttled down and back up again, more banging noises and oil coming out the bottom, pilot "we seem to have an issue with an engine you will all have to get off and walk back to the terminal". We looked out the window at the growing puddle of oil, yes definitely a problem!. Another Dash 8 from Exeter airport, landing gear failed to come up and then wouldn't go back down properly, a bit of circling and an emergency landing. Helicopter from Aberdeen, I think it was an old Bell of some sort, windscreen broke just as we were going over the coast line, slow return to the airport. S76 from North Denes in Great Yarmouth (also now shut) and emergency abort on take of as we diced a seagull. Helicopter from Aberdeen, divert and emergency landing at Sumburgh Shetlands due to an indicated gearbox fault, turned out it was a new gearbox and there was enough initial wear to generate enough swarf to trigger an alarm, we were told it is basically a magnet with to contacts, if carp builds up enough to make a contact it triggers the alarm. A genuine alarm but not a true fault this time but subsequent to that a series of the same type helicopters crashed in the North Sea with losses of all lives onboard due to a gearbox fault, supposedly the "fault" was found and fixed twice but more flights crashed each time and eventually the aircrafts (EC225) were all withdrawn as people were refusing to get on them, we now mostly use S92's. Might seem a few but I have done 12 flights so far this year and will hopefully be heading home tomorrow which will involve three separate flights so the numbers rack up.

That's basically what I have done, refunded minus the postage and he is sending it back at his cost, so it has cost him a few quid in postage for the whole episode. I stopped allowing returns via eBay automatically as I had a few people buy tools then want to return them, when they came back they were clearly used so they were using me as a cheap tool hire, since they got there postage back it left me out of pocket, mostly I could clean the tools up a bit and sell them again but it was the principle as much as anything else. This guy had clearly made a genuine mistake and clearly not used the tool so its just one of those things, only cost me a bit of time so just one of those things.

Ok got some more info from the buyer but no picture, apparently it is the engine in a Rover 800 so Landroversforever identification as a Range Rover VM engine may not be far from the mark, I was clearly not getting all the info to start with, "standard Rover engine" was technically correct but since it was stated as a LR tool the implication would be the Rover meant Land Rover which is not the case. Apparently some one told him that a 300tdi locking tool would work on it, it clearly doesn't, in the advert I do state the bolt PCD since I know it will work on some other Rover and Jag engines and leave it to the buy to check if it fits there engine if they want to try and use it on anything other than a LR engine. Might offer him a small refund or let him return it at his cost since it clearly won't have been used, but that the lot.

OK, one for the engine people. I sold a 200/300tdi engine crank locking tool to someone who is now complaining it doesn't fit there Land Rover engine, its the type that picks up the 4 bolt holes in the front pulley and locks the crank to undo or do up the front pulley bolt, the bolt holes in the tool are 4 x 75mm PDC for M8 bolts which I know is correct for all 200/300 tdi engines I have seen and will also work for 2.5 NA / TD engines (plus I believe some jag engines). They have sent me the picture below of the front crank pulley on there "Rover" engine which looks nothing like any land rover engine I have ever seen, way more holes, looks like some one has been busy with a drill!, also a weird inner circle of bolts. I have asked them for a picture of the entire engine and what model of LR its fitted to but still waiting for a reply. I suspect they might have a non LR engine fitted by a previous owner, which would be slightly worrying that they are working on and engine assuming its standard when its a different make, might have few issues with parts fitting......... So anyone any idea what it might be or any guesses just from this picture?. With this being eBay if they lodge a complaint I am likely to end up giving them all there money and postage back since eBay seems to use work on the idea the buyer is always right, even when there not, sod the seller.

Cheep steel is often EN1 or EN3 both soft easily welded and easily formed, easily forms pretty much says easily bent. Next common step is up to EN8 which is general engineering grade after that it becomes more specific, I use EN24 for higher strength stuff. As a general rule the higher the EN number the stronger it is (and more expensive!). Also the higher numbers will mostly heat treat well to make them very hard, weld EN24 with no special treatment and you will struggle to scratch it with a file, down side is it is then more brittle, there are ways of welding it so it doesn't become brittle but that's more specialist stuff. I believe standard halfshafts are EN18 and heat treated but don't have any proof of that. Since I can often acquire marine bar ends and scrap I often use 316 stainless for machining odds and sods but also get Duplex which is engineering stainless and difficult to beat when strength is required but the prices are high if buying new from a dealer (I get corroded or worn shafts as scrap).

Always feels good to get it off your chest. You should have see some of the rants I had at FedEx when they duplicated an import invoice, and tried to charge me twice, there customer service was so bad it drove me bonkers, took hours to get through on the phone, about half the time when you said it was a invoice issue they used to say send an email and hang up, never once got a sensible reply to an email, most were clearly automated others were so idiotic they either hadn't read the email, where answering some one else and sending it to me, or were being creatively incompetent. Best was from a "manager" who admitted it was a duplicate invoice and the genuine bill had been paid but still insisted I should pay again and suggested I copied the genuine VAT invoice and submitted it several more times to get claim the VAT back and cover paying them for there mistake, pretty sure trying to claim the same VAT several times is not legal! and as a private importer for personal use I can't claim anything back anyway. I gave them grief on every place I could find and eventually they decided to drop the charge, took 9 months though. If you want a laugh look at FedEx UK on TrustPilot, its pretty bad.

I generally use a 3 tonne long reach trolly jack and 5 tonne axle stands. The long reach trolley jack mostly as the handle is still clear when I am jacking it up, just me being lazy, it will also lift a long way which is handy at times. Like others I would steer well clear of the cheap pressed steel 2 tonne type trolley jacks, the rated load should be enough but with a LR or just about any 4x4 you will be using it higher up in its travel than on a standard car and as it its gets closer to its limits it can get a bit wobbly. Similarly with the axle stands I have, I mostly use mine with the pin on the first hole under the axle but a few more hole under the chassis, its mostly the extra footprint I want as it keeps things steadier especially if you are yanking things about trying to get suspension arms to bolt up. I have had a LR roll off a jack in the past (on a slope, lifted one rear wheel, didn't put it in 4x4 (S2a) or chock the front wheels, learned that lesson the hard way!), so I tend to over do jacking and axle stands as that's far better than under doing it.

I also looked at getting 3 phase in direct, bearing in mind the sub station is less than 10m from my workshop, I got western power down to have a look, the engineer was very nice and made an immediate estimate of about £7500 to 10000 and that just to run the cable to my property, work on my side would be down to me. He offered a full formal quote but didn't think it would change much so it would have been a waste of time. He did mention that some one else he had spoken with ended up getting a second hand 3 phase generator and running that but since I live on an estate with close neighbours that wasn't a solution that would have made me popular, guess it depends where peoples workshops are.

On bigger lathes such as my Colchester Triumph 2000 the electrical motor is started and then runs continuously whilst the lathe is used, the control lever then uses a clutch mechanism to engage the drive and spin the chuck either forwards or backwards, the motor continues to spin in the same direction all the time. On a M300 there is no clutch and the motor is started and stopped to spin the chuck. In use with a normal full 3 phase power supply there would be little effective difference in use for most users. The issues can arise when using a static or rotary 3 phase convertor to power the lathe that they often don't like being started and stopped or it has to be done at the convertor rather than using the lathe controls (again the full reason for this would need to come from some one with more electronic skills than me), a lot of VFD's have a pendant type controller which with some clever wiring (cleverer than me anyway!) can be wired in to operate from the lathe controls which keeps things neat or mounted on the lathe. It can all be sorted but sometimes takes a bit more thought. Many VFD's will also start a motor gently to reduce the start up power draw and allow a smaller cheaper VFD to be used, mostly this isn't going to be to much of an issue but it can be for some things like thread cutting.

One point to consider with this lathe, is an M300 (or M250) is not a clutch driven lathe like the bigger Harrisons or Colchester's where the motor runs constantly, to stop or reverse direction to motor is stopped or reversed, from memory a clutch drive comes in with the Colchester Master size 5hp motors. Typically most 3 phase converter are set up to start the motor and then keep it running in one direction at a constant speed, not sure this will work so well with this lathe. Not going to even pretend I understand the wiring required to make it work but I am fairly sure there are others on here who can explain it.

Snatich ???? Possible not from an English speaking country

My preference would be to go for a Harrison or Colchester, Harrison M250 or M300 would be my choice but nothing wrong with a Colchester Bantam or Student (later square head version). I have a Colchester Triumph 2000 in the garage but that is probable bigger than you want. Most Harrison or Colchesters will be 3 phase as standard so will need some sort of work to work on single phase, I use a digital converter from DrivesDirect which works well but is not a cheep option, plenty of the smaller lathes have just had the 3 phase motor changed out for a similarly sized single phase motor, I have seen reports 3 phase is preferred on a lathes as it is smoother but it would need some one better than me to explain why and I expect for most normal users it would be unnoticeable. With Warco I have never had one of there lathes but did have one of there mills, it worked OK and did what I wanted at the time but when I changed it out for a KRV mill the difference is very noticeable. With any used machine it is going to be a few years old so will need a check, just as when buying a used car some will be perfect, others basically scrap, so same advice as when buying a car if you aren't sure what to check take someone with you who does. I bought my lathe and milling machine from Bowland Trading in Darwen, I have no connection with them other than buying the two machines, but happy to recommend, both have been been excellent, were exactly as described and service was good, including the owner going in on a Sunday so we could collect them. Again as with a used car buying from a dealer is going to cost a bit more but will give you a bit of buyer protection.

Not a subject I know much about but have been looking for some sort of system to keep the truck battery topped up when I am away (it could easily not get used for a couple of months depending on my schedule), tried a cheap panel in the windscreen plugged into the lighter socket and not convinced it did anything and certainly not enough. Plugging in a mains powered system is not an option where the truck is kept. So now thinking a bigger panel on the rear and controller such as being discussed here, with the controller hard wired in with a disconnect switch or simple unplug when using the vehicle and the panel removable. The controller in the link above and a medium sized (100w?) panel should do the job to act as a trickle charge as far as I can see, possible over kill but I tend to over engineer rather than under!. Just to educate me on this, looking at the battery options for the above controller would a standard car battery class as "flooded"?.

I have used MTA for both MIG and TIG welders. I currently have a TecArc 216i and it has been fine, performs well with no issues. When you look at the specs one thing to check is the power draw, the newer Invertor ones draw a LOT less than the older coils types, something to bear in mind if you look at second hand ones, any sort of power and you start looking at 50-60amp inputs or 3 phase, if you have no power supply issues then fine but for use on a domestic supple something to consider.

Do you think it would fit in a LR......... Possible a bit over powered for the job.

If its still not starting with a jump start it doesn't sound like the battery but there are a couple of things to check. I am assuming its not turning over at all. First where are you putting the jump leads?, positive to the battery terminal but negative is better going to the block, if that fixes it then the negative from the battery is the issue. You could also try just running a jump lead from the negative battery terminal to the engine block, again if this work it is an earth strap issue. Some cars will send a positive direct from the ignition switch to the starter solenoid but a lot send a signal to a relay in the fuse box which then in turn send a signal to the relay on the starter. In your case it sounds like this relay in the fuse box is playing up and for some reason not closing properly which is giving a buzzing noise. If you can trace which one it is and check the terminal are good etc that is worth a go, most LR relays on older vehicles are pretty standard so you maybe able to change it out with another and see what happens. Finally to rule out the starter itself you can try shorting out between the 2 big terminals on the solenoid attached to the starter, do it carefully and briefly with a screwdriver or spanner being careful not to contact anything else, it WILL get hot very quickly and WILL try and weld itself in place and possible spark quite impressively so careful and brief is the way to go.

Though I tend to agree there are a lot of people milking the system and getting money for at best dubious schemes (it happens in all aspects of business, environmental stuff is just getting a lot of money thrown at it at the moment), there are other schemes and ideas which genuinely look good, most probable won't pan out in the long run but it only needs the one and there can be a step change in technology in some form, no idea what form that will take, if I did I would be investing!. At the moment a lot of the schemes are only viable in the real world due to huge grants in some form, either direct payments or guaranteed purchases prices at above market price, tax rebates at over 100% etc etc. It says something about relative costs that the government sale of rights to build offshore wind farms didn't get a single bid as the subsides offered weren't high enough but Rosebank field has investors (mostly Equinor and Ithica) willing to pay out £2-3 billion in investment to bring it on line risking being shut down at any point but its still financially worth it even with the current 70% tax on all profit being paid by oil companies.

Yep above the upper explosive limit. Wasn't quite sure if that also made it an asphyxiating atmosphere as well, can't remember the numbers. I can remember a quite entertaining experiment for measuring the upper explosive limit for methane, get a large coffee tin or similar, make a small hole in the lid and seal it with a bit of bluetack, make a hole in the side at the bottom (two if you want to put a gas sample probe in to get a reading), fill the tin with methane at as high a concentration as you can get. Remove the blue tack from the top and light the methane, to start you get a decent flame (best done inside in near dark) the flame will get smaller and smaller as the concentration decreases and air is draw into the bottom, just when you think it is about to go out the inside of the tin reaches the upper explosive limit and blows the lid across the lecture theatre with a nice bang. The same thing should work for other gasses that are lighter than air. Always made a lecture more interesting when we got to blow things up, we moved up to Nobel powergel, det cord, ANFO and special gelatine late but definitely not inside for them.

With regard throwing a match into a bucket of petrol, I suspect it would ignite the fumes before it actually landed in the petrol so not something I would want to try. I have heard that if you are fully inside the vapour cloud then you can flick a lighter and there wouldn't be enough oxygen for it to ignite (not sure how that would work with breathing?) and frankly you would have to be bonkers to try it. I do think that at the moment the figures on EV fires have to small a base and age range to analyse effectively, particularly most EV's are relatively new so they should be in good condition, I would suspect (but admit I have no figures) that most vehicles fires of all types are for older or badly maintained vehicles. Loose cable fitting were mentions as a potential fire point, at the moment most EV's will be on original power packs and any replacement or tinkering is likely to have been done by qualified or at least very knowledgeable amateurs (due to costs of parts if nothing else), as prices drop and more home mechanics get involved issues would likely increase, I appreciate this is true of ICE vehicles as well but it won't be showing up much yet in statistics. I would also add that I expect as things move on better fittings, batteries etc will improve both safety and reliability, the technology is constantly evolving I am still not sure it is there yet for me personally but its definitely getting better. Since I work in drilling for oil or gas I do have a bit of an interest in people continuing to use oil!.

Glad you are back and both on the mend.

Since the shock cover either metal or rubber boot is only there to keep it clean I don't see how having it in place or not is any form of safety issue, from my experience the metal type of cover (seem to be older "standard" shocks) easily fill with dirt and rubber boots can do the same. I can see that having them might prevent some scratching, chipping or corrosion on the chrome rod so having them missing might reduce the life of the shock as the rod rusts but on the other hand being able to see the rod allows it to be checked easier. So long as the shock actually works I would just keep going and change it out when it fails. As for which way up a shock should go I would assume it would depend on the make and type, I have generally fitted them with the body down but not for any reason other than that's the way I have always done it. The axle bracket does seem like others have said a bit of a bodge to reduce the risk if a known problem with the axle happens, better to fit a properly welded axle, an axle should not snap like that unless it is being seriously abused, I have seen people snap the end off but it has always been the bolts failing after a big impact or the tube bending never a crack.

Not quite paint but thought people might be interested. To keep machined parts rust free between stages in the workshop I bought a small drum of Castrol Rustillo rust preventative, its is advertised as a dewaterer / rust preventative, basically think in terms of a light version of waxoil, it leaves a thin waxy coat on the steel which cleans off easily with brake cleaner. to give it a not very scientific test I got two pieces of mild steel swarf, sprayed one with the rustillo and left them both out side the workshop for a month, the results are below. Considering the recommendation is that parts are dipped into the fluid and I used a spray (ex WD40 spray bottle), it is rated for indoor protection and the surface of the drill swarf is rough with lots of hard to reach pitting I don't think it did a bad job, the rust may well just be spots I didn't get good coverage on. Another case of corrosion, this is the prop shaft off a yacht, 316 stainless, and as you can see a total right off due to corrosion, may well have snapped it actually used in anger, this was due to not being earthed back to the zinc's correctly. Main corrosion was just out side the sealing gland and where the cutlass bearing was running on the prop end (tapered at the top of picture) can clear be seen. The replacement was made with duplex, the prop also replaced as that was un healthy as well, the earth was fixed by the owner before they the boat was put back in the water.

I was thinking the same thing!

Well just to close this out. My boss agreed for it to be paid via my expenses, and then it started again, the link to a card payment option they provided goes so far and then spits out errors of invalid number refer to vendor, tried several different browsers and couldn't get past the error, never even got to the part where I enter the company card details, got a friend to try just to make sure I wasn't doing anything silly and he couldn't get any further either. They have no customer services number to call (probable to many complaints!), there online helps advise was talk to customer services as they didn't have a clue so not a lot of help, rung the bookings number to see if I could get transferred internally, they tried calling internally but couldn't get hold of anyone from customer services either and had no idea what to do, they suggested a couple of other numbers to call both of which rung out with no reply. Gave up and emailed customer services (copied in damages payment person so they were aware of the problems with there system) explaining the problem with screen shots and asking for a solution, got an automated reply and a case number nothing else. Two weeks later no reply from customer services but got a demand for payment and a threat of unspecified legal action against me personally via a 3rd party collections agency if I didn't pay immediately. The only other payment option is a direct bank transfer to a German bank account Bank: Deutsche Bank IBAN: GB24DEUT40508119796509 BIC: DEUTGB2L, since its a corporate hire it needs to go on the company card and to the best of my knowledge its not possible to make this sort of transfer from a credit card, I don't have any access to the actual bank accounts to make a payment, if I pay it from my personal bank account they will get funny with expenses and probable reject it as they want everything to be paid via company card. Don't want this on my credit rating so contacted one of our IT guys to see if he could work anything out, with him remoted into my PC he hit the same errors as I did, fiddled around with settings and still couldn't get anywhere, eventually he tried via his PC and changed some more advanced setting (no idea what its above my IT knowledge!) and managed to make the payment he said it wasn't easy. It really shouldn't be that difficult for me to actually give them money and says something about them that its impossible to actually get any sort of reply from customer services on how to make a payment but you get threatened with legal action for not making the payment. There didn't get a good write up on Trustpilot which added to plenty of other complaints, there rating is 1.4 on a scale of 1 to 5. Rant over and I didn't even trigger the swear filter!.