sean f

Mostly it comes down to the hubs you have fitted, on early hubs the drive flange is thicker and sticks out further (Ashcrofts site explains the cross over time etc), drum axles are all of the early type as far as I am aware. Many alloys were made to fit the later hub with the thinner drive flange some of these will also fit earlier axles but not all it depends on the clearance inside the wheel. Obviously early alloys will fit later axles with no problems. Most of the time when people are selling alloys they don't point out this difference and are often unaware of it. Range Rover or Disco drive shafts have a different drive flange design which gets around this problem. I thought the cross over from thick drive flanges to thin was at the same time as 10 spline to 24 spline drive shafts but comments from other people suggest this is not always the case.

The insurance company are only obliged to cover you to RTA level though, technically the legal minimum cover is for injuries to other persons only, NOT cover for other vehicles, material damages, very few if any insurance companies will sell this level of cover but it is what they default to if a vehicle, or driver is clearly not as covered. If the difference is marginal which to be fair a vehicle as described but on a technically illegal number would be they may decide to honour the 3rd party cover, if not you will be taken to court personnelly for the remaining money. In theory you can take any non insured driver to court for money owed as well but in practice if they have no money it is a waste of time so very rarely done.

Just watched it on the BBC local news, shows someone with a 90 towing people out of flood water, any one on here?.

Winch isolators are a good security devise as well. There was a story a while back about a bunch of lads who were unwinding the winch cables from a vehicle running it over the roof and hooking it to the tow bar, then shorting out the solinoid and watching the vehicle self destruct. With most winch setup this would be pretty simply for any one with basic knowledge, a winch cut off under the bonnet or in the cab makes it quite a bit harder.

It depends on what axle you currently have and what state its in, if you have the drum braked axle (can't remember when they switched over) its probable worth it. Otherwise it is basically the same axle so it depends on condition. Reconditioning your current axle is probable easier although it is worth keeping the disco axles as spares if they are going cheap.

I wonder if you could fit rod or cable operated fiddle brakes and claim they were your emergence steering system fi the hydro steer fails!

Just had alook on EBlag and someone is selling a chassis plate and V5 with what they describe as the remains of a chassis. Not very good at links, but if you search the land rover parts section for "chassis plate V5" it comes up. I just can't see how this is legal, or if it isn't actually legal to sell then what legal purpose would a chassis plate and V5 have with out the rest of the vehicle. At best it would give a false id to a home made vehicle that should have a Q plate, at worst it would be used to ring a stolen vehicle. Since there is only a chassis included then even if this was repaired and a vehicle built up on it there still wouldn't be enough point to be able to keep the reg. ebay link

Is it just me or do the ruts in the picture on the Gleam page look to deep with no central diff bottoming out marks to be from any normal 4x4?. Looks like either a tractor or some form of logging kit to me, in which case nothing they do is going to stop that anyway as this is commericail traffic not "fun" drivers. Seen pictures like this before often blamed on 4x4's and bikes when even the most basic look shows they must have been made by some form of commercial vehicle.

Don't think its realy fair to compare P@P wing kits with North Off Roads ones. The North Off Road kits is fully welded together and far more comprehensive with panels etc. The P@P kits is just the bent bars which need to be notched and welded, something it is easy to make a right mess of if you aren't carefull. Which kit people use depends on there fabricating skills and the end results they want. People have been making tubular wings for years its just that North Off Road were the first people to sell them as a kit as far as I am aware so P@P can hardly be accused of ripping them off. I have had dealings with both companies and found them both to be good to deal with and never had a problem with quality from either of them.

This was pointed out to be a while back by a tester, there is potentially serious consiquences to this. If you are advised of a fault, for instance tyres which are legal but only just, but don't bother changing them. If you have an accident several month later were the worn tyres are found to be below the limit and to have been a factor in the accident you are in more serious trouble since you KNEW about the fault but chose to do nothing. You may well find the insurance may refuse to pay out as well since you are required to maintain the vehicle in a fit condition. The issue is that you knew (and looking at the records they can prove you knew) about a fault but did not fix it in a reasonable time (not sure what would be considered a reasonable time).

Not sure now any one would not notice Mog axles!!!. Toyota axles probable wouldn't be noticed unles it was a close inspection or some one knew what they were looking at. They would have to be declared to your insurance company however as with any other modification.

Weren't in your "work" car by any chance were you. Got strange question from neighbours for days after you parked it out side my house!.

If Shrek can't sort you out with a hub spanner in time, send me a PM and I will see what I can do.

Sounds like a certain "1965 tax exempt series 2 hybrid" on E-Bay a while ago!.

I am with JST on this one for the amount of work involved in a full rebuild (I have done several now) get a new chassis from Richards with all the modifications you want done before the galvanising is done then you know every thing is fine. I have bought several chassis from Richards now and found there service and quality to be great. If your chassis is OK buy another rusty chassised 90 Re chassis that adding all the good bits from yours then put all the leftovers back on your chassis and sell the vehicle on. The identity of the vehicle is the chassis so as long as your inform the DVLA about any engine number changes and possible colour change if you keep your bodywork its all legal and above board.

The problem with these systems is energy efficience. You can generate hydrogen from water, we do it at work to run gas analysis equipment BUT, you need to put more power in to generate the hydrogen than you will get back by burning the hydrogen, the power to liberate the hydrogen comes from the alternator, which is run by the engine.... so ultimately there is no gain or even a potential loss. If this sort of thing acually worked we would have self powering cars (and power stations!) run on water, since as far as I am aware no one has managed to do this (and if any one works out how the reward would be huge), the process cannot have been made self generating. Ths voltage you need to put through th water is quite high to "crack" the water down to hydrogen and oxygen, you also need to run the generator units on VERY clean water as an impurity is left behind and ultimately clogs the unit up (they have a clean up process built in when this happens). We only generate hydrogen on site due to the safety issues in having hydrogen cylinders around otherwise.

There was a case a few years back of a guy who wired his car to the mains and zapped soem one who tried to steal it. He was taken to court but got away with it on the grounds the car was in his garage and they had to break into that first so there was no danger to "innocent" passers by. The judge did tell him not to do it again though...... shame. I have also been in a car where the alarm was wired to a military percussion grenade under the rear seat, any one trying to steal the car would have been luck to get away with only burst ear drums and was more likely to end up decorating what ever was left of the roof of the car. This was in Africa by the way and I am pretty sure it wasn't legal even there so definately not a good idea here, although the same idea with a smoke bomb may work and would be more likely to attact attention than a standard alarm.

Got to agree with q-rover. The origional engine management is tied in with the BECM and the immobiliser with links to the gearbox, suspension etc. It probable is possible to extract it and isolate / turn off all the other functions of the BECM but I would have to question why bother. The origional system isn't exactly renown for being with out problems!. For the amount of work involved it would be better to go over to another engine management system, which one depends on the depth of your pockets and personal preference, from what I have seen and read the megasquirt seems to be good but there are others on here with FAR more experience of this system than me. This would give you a far more trouble free system and should improve power as well.

A few pictures from Sunday, including a marshal testing the depth of the mud. James the rest of the picture will go in the post tomorrow.

When a flamable gas (LPG in this case) is mixed with air there is a range at which the mixure becomes explosive, to much gas and there will not be enough oxygen present to little and there won't be enough fuel. In an engine this is controlled so the mixure in the cylinders is in this explosive range when the spark from the plug reaches it hence making the engine work. In a tank the mixture should always be in the to rich range, this is why a nearly empty tank is the most dangerous situation (same is true on a petrol tank with the vapours being the gas). The risk in a household situation is that if enough air enters the gas main then the entire sytem might drop to the maximum explosive limit in which case it is possible for the flame to go back up the pipe and cause an explosion, this is why when a gas main catches fire it is often safer to leave it burning until the gas can be turned off and the concentration reduced in a safe and controlled manner. (This is the reason for blow back preventors on oxy-acetyline gear, the same effect is seen if the gas is switched off at the bottle, the pipe just contains less volume than a househole gas main) The upper explosive limit of methane can be demonstrated with a coffee tin with a few holes and a gas meter, I am not going to explain how in case some one tries and manages to blow them selves up but any one with a knowledge of gas should be able to work it out, the clue is methane is lighter then air.

A few of the photos from todays event.

Bad luck. You may be lucky in which case a seal has gone on the master or the slave cylinder. Just follow the pipe down from the back of the master cylinder the slave is bolted into the bellhousing with 2 small bolts with a flexible hose going to it. If there is no fluid leaking at the master cylinder end try unbolting the slave and lifting it out the push rod should stay in the bellhousing but may well come out as well it should be held to the clutch fork by a small plastic clip but these often seem to fall apart. If there is signs of leaking then this maybe the fault. I would alway change the slave and the master at the same time as one always seem to go soon after the other but I guess this may depend on what parts availability and cost you have out there. Unfortunately it sounds like you are describing the signs of the clutch fork holing through on the pivot, a not uncommon failure, if this is the case the only solution is to take the gearbox out and change the fork (generally it is worth changing the clutch at the same time since you have done most of the work). This makes it a much bigger job and more expensive especially if you are going to have to pay a garage to do it. Any competent garage should be able to do the job landrovers are pretty basic to work on compared to most cars, often a light agricultural or small commercial vehicle garage are a better bet than a normal car garage as they are more used to working with this type of vehicle if a landrover / 4x4 garage isn't available.

A lot of the utility companies use PTO powered winches (HW12??) so the gearbox connection end is about sourceing one might not be easy but they do come up fairly frequently second hand, most of these use a forward facing take of for the winch but the one I have (admittedly on a series) also has a rearward facing drive flange drilled to take a standard land rover prop. Not to sure what would go on the back of the vehicle but I assume something intended for a small tractor could be modified to fit, this would depend on what he is running then a custom propshaft made up to connect them together. A lot would depend on the sort of power he needed and the sort of money he wanted to spend.

This is where risk assements come in, many people here seem to work in industries where filling in risk assements are a part of life so will know what I am talking about. An assement of hazard and risk is made and measures put in place to lessen them. In this case a sail is used to prevent the rope flying around in the event of it snapping (I know this is under depate) but this potentially exposes people to another risk of it becoming tangled in the winch or having to move it with the cable under stress. If a formal risk assement is made that the risk of it becoming tangled is greater then the risk of the rope snapping that is an argument for not using a sail IN THAT PARTICULAR CASE. Another case of winch across a track on the level it maybe desided that the risk of it becoming tangled is low and the benefit for others being able to see it makes the sail a good idea. In most industry formal paperork needs to be filled in for this, but most of the time it comes down to common sense, winching up a slope will result in the sail sliding down. Outside of industry the same type of assement is usually done but not actually written down, normally based on experience i.e. will that tree support the load form the winch etc.

My understand was that they were generally places who did design / fabrication work AND had qualified and certified people to do it. Official qualifications PROVE some one is fit to make a judgement. Before people get upset there are many people without qualifications perfectly capable of doing this and many with the qualifications who are frankly idiots. Its mostly a case of the insurance companies having a paper trail to say they had an "appropriate" person check the vehicle. Proven competence is becoming a big thing in a lot of industry mostly to cover the managers / owners for liability if some one working for them takes a short cut and cause an accident of some type (or maybe I am getting cynical here). The paper work show they SHOULD have know better there fore it is there fault.