sean f
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Posts posted by sean f
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No expert on paints so can't recommend anything but if you have a short list of possible products search for the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets) sheets for them. These will give a chemical list of anything potentially harmful and any recommended precautions to take for use, storage and transportation, more info than you would get on the normal instruction, provided you know what it is you are trying to avoid and now it could be listed as a chemical name it should show up on these. I would guess that anything that recommends breathing protection for solvents in it would probable be a bad idea for you.
The sheets should be readily downloadable from either the retailer or the manufacturer (probable easy to find via google), they cover just about any chemical product available on the market, in theory every one should review them before handling any chemical, in reality few people do in the home environment.
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2 hours ago, cackshifter said:
The engine moves a surprising amount on its mounts, so I wondered if a pump could be mounted on brackets maybe cantilevered from the sump, then it could all move with the engine, and you could drive it through some short coupling with rubber isolation from the crank so the pulley could do its job. There are small couplings like a dog clutch to handle minor misalignments. Presumably you would bolt whatever coupling to the pulley centre with some kind of spacer over the crank bolt head to the 4 M8 holes, and it would become part of the crank mass unless decoupled.
I made this a few years back for a friend, worked well for quite a few years, as far as I am aware it still is working somewhere.
The drive coupling was drilled to bolt up using the existing fitting bolts for the pulley (M8 4x75mm PCD if any one is interested) and the other side machined and keyed for the dog clutch. In use it was activated manually at the start of the event and left in until the end, it wouldn't have taken a huge amount of work to rig a remote cable mechanism of some sort. This was the first make up and after reinstalling the engine it had to come back out and the lower edges of the mount cut back to give enough clearance for the front axle, from memory they were made this size first go as that was the width of the steel late I had in the workshop a bit of work with the grinder soon fixed things. I think there was about an inch of clearance on the rad for a 200tdi/LT77 set up, I don't think it would be possible to do something similar for a 300tdi/R380 set up with out some serious moving about of stuff.
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Turning a drive the other direction is not that difficult, you can buy 90deg boxes off the shelf although you would need some one with more knowledge than me to work out the torque and size needed, with the gearing down on the winch probable not that big.
Couplings to suit can be bought and machined quite easily too, bracketry required would need to be made and fitted as well which would probable get in the realms of not worth it.
The one in the picture was one of several on a modified HGV (carnival float) to operate the steering, rather than use keyed couplings they had drilled the ends of bars so they slid over the pins of the gearboxes and then drilled through the lot and used 4mm roll pins through that to hold it together and provide drive, you can see how accurate they weren't, it developed quite a bit of play, how it passed any sort of test at any time to drive on the road is beyond me. It was all rebuilt with the correct rated couplings and replacement drive pins for the boxes.
Mind you what is possible and what is worth the effort and cost is a different issue, in your case I expect running the pump off the pto and finding a way to route the pipes out of the way is probable going to prove much simpler.
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16 hours ago, steve b said:
I saw Ineos on the news tonight...not talking about the Grenadier but instead suggesting fracking might reveal vast reserves of shale gas following the lifting of the ban on exploration.
Thoughts? The experience in the USA suggests it's not without risk.
Steve
Most of the problems quoted from the USA are either garbage or from very bad operating practices (regulation can be a bit patchy compared to the UK), real risks if done properly are very low, quotes of gas leaking into water supplies etc are often from places where that was natural before they started drilling (natural gas and oil seeps are more common than most people think), just on pure self interest the companies want to sell the gas, if it leaks away that's there money disappearing!, the geology in the potential producing areas in the UK make this very unlikely. The process WILL create minor earthquakes, the clue is in the name, they fracture the ground, but a HGV hitting a pot hole also creates an earthquake often of a higher magnitude depending on how hard it hits, any mining area will have much bigger shocks from blasting above or below ground.
That said I am sceptical on how well it will work here, technically they can only frack and produce a certain zone around the drilled hole so quite a few holes are required, with fairly standard drilling tech you can drill down and out about 2-3 miles, more is possible but it needs more and bigger kit and is higher risk so costs start heading up exponentially. So from a single drilling site you can tap reserves from about a 5-6mile diameter area, in the USA it is normally relatively easy to move behind a forest or hills and find a low population area where you can drill out of sight or where no one cares to much, in the UK with the population densities we have that's just not possible, you will always be next to someone. A drill site can be anywhere, even the middle of an industrial estate but it will be noisy, and have lots of trucks going in and out which will cause problems in most places and realistically be the biggest impact to people in the area, there will be protestors as well so security costs will be high and disruptions adding to operating costs. In the USA the land owners will get a share of the revenue from the produced gas so basically they can be bought, in the UK oil and gas as well as coal are national resources so the land owner gets nothing except the person who either sold or rented them a plot for the drill rig and production equipment to go on.
All oil and gas production is done by private companies and is sold on international markets or with prices set from international markets and the quantity produced in the UK will not even come close to effecting them so not going to do anything to reduce prices. I do find it quite entertaining that as oil and gas producing companies are making increased profits there are calls to increase the rates they are taxed at (companies are taxed on profit so the government is already getting increased revenue anyway) but there never seems to be any mention of the solar and wind farms (generally smaller companies) which must also have seen hugely increased profits getting there rates of tax increased. "Green" energy tariffs have gone up at the same rate as standard ones so someone is cashing in in a big way there as well.
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11 hours ago, simonr said:
Good idea for a thread!
I've been looking at Solar & Battery Storage for at least the last decade. Back in 2012, battery storage didn't make sense. The payback time was in the order of 30 years based on what you could potentially save. Payback on Solar was 10 to 25 Years. Better, but not worth it really.
Gradually however, it has got better & better, until now it's a no-brainer. So long, that is, if you can afford the system in the first place & have somewhere to put batteries and / or panels. Luckily I can / have - sort of. Based on our electricity consumption and the rates you can buy it (off peak) from Octopus Energy, the payback time for Batteries is now in the 3-5 year range.
I've just ordered a GivEnergy HY5 G2 + 9.5kWh of batteries due to be installed next month.
I talked to a few Solar companies but based on the area of our roof (as viewed on Google Earth) they didn't think I could install more than 1.5kW capacity - which is just not worth the installation cost. I have almost that capacity on my Camper Van!
My solution (yet to be built) is this:
Effectively a solar-porch or pergola with 5kW worth of translucent panels (to let a bit of light through). I had planned to build it at the moment - but availability of panels says otherwise! The inverter I've ordered will just plug into whatever panels I eventually install - but will start saving money immediately.
It will be interesting to see how the batteries on their own perform & if the real savings compare to the potential.
I had to apply for planning permission for the above, which seems daft to me when I could build the porch without panels without permission. You need permission for anything over 9 sqm of panels not attached to your roof. Fortunately Planning were reasonably enthusiastic about it. I think they can see the writing on the wall for a future where every available surface is covered in panels!
I bought a single translucent panel to test. It's connected to a micro-grid-tie inverter from Amazon which you just plug in to a mains socket & it feeds power into the house. It only generates about 400W peak - but it has made a noticeable difference over the summer.I really like this idea, like you my roof is aligned the wrong way for panels with just the hip end in the right direction, even the door to door solar panel salesman who called said it wasn't going to be viable (at least he said it rather than sending an engineer to tell me the same thing). There used to be a conservatory on the back of the house before I bought it, something like you show would only put it back and with the roof area I do have might make solar viable, can't see how the planners can complain to much since it wouldn't be visible to just about any one else.
Do you know roughly what sort of square meterage would be needed for it to be credible?, obviously going to be variable depending on build costs etc but must be some sort of minimum.
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5 hours ago, smallfry said:
I have delivered to a couple of houses that had geothermal heating. Seems ideal, very uncomplicated, and works rain or shine (or dark) only uses a small amount of electricity I understand.
Anyone got any experience ?
Not got experience of using it personally but been involved in a couple of projects with it. It kind of depends on what you class as geothermal energy, a ground source heat pump is geothermal energy, from that it goes across to projects like they have in Iceland using seriously heated rock which isn't going to happen in the UK. The recent project in Cornwall restarted the old HDR (Hot Dry Rocks) project with a couple of new deep well bores, this pumps fluid down one well and it heats up before coming up the other, it definitely works but whether it is economic after spending 10's of millions drilling the holes is questionable and what they are trying to work out down there. On a smaller scale I have drilled a few holes in Holland which if I remember correctly where only about 4-5000ft deep so only cost a few million each, which worked on a similar principle, that was for heating industrial green houses.
At a domestic level geothermal is not going to be hot enough for heating directly with out serious up front spending (very efficient once done but no idea what the pay back period would be) but the hotter the input to a ground source heat pump the less it works (costs!) to put usable heat into a house, any hole would need to be deep enough and long enough to provided the output required, heat only flows through rock at a set rate so suck to much out and it will cool down before more heat from below heats it back up.
The basic theory of a heat pump has been around for years, your fridge is a heat pump, it pumps heat from in the fridge to outside the fridge, turn it round and build it into a wall with the door open out side the house and the cooling coil inside and it's an air source heat pump, although probable a very inefficient one. Just like a fridge will only work efficiently over a certain temperature range heat pumps of all sorts will have an efficient working range presumable tailored to the environment they are expected to be working in, a more stable input temperature should enable it to be set up more efficiently.
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As others have said a smart meter only tells you what you are using and if working correctly how much that is cost you, its then up to you to change things to actually save money, most of the changes are pretty obvious turn lights off, turn heating down etc even without the meter. It can be useful to show just how much somethings use though, I found out the fluorescent tubes in my workshop used more power than the lathe, each time one failed I replaced it with an LED light (they were also cheaper which made it more obvious a thing to do) and power usage dropped.
People get hung up on oil being a finite resource and its cost of production, its not quite that simple, like any resource as it gets more limited the price goes up, as demand goes up the prices goes up, when demand drops price drops (during covid for a while it was actually negative). It won't suddenly run out but it will progressively get more expensive which will make other sources of power more viable. To get more complicated there is no one cost of production, each well has a cost per barrel associated with it, due to flow rate, contaminates, quality and percentage of water being produced with the oil, etc. If price goes down they shut the more expensive ones off so overall price of production drops, if the price goes up it becomes economic to reopen these wells and bring on new fields with higher operating costs so apparent overall cost of production goes up but they are still making a profit. New technology is also making reserves that were unviable possible all the time which is why quoted world reserves are variable and frankly not a number worth a dogs leavings since there are so many variables it's pretty much a guess. We are drilling wells now that would have been impossible even 10 years ago, 20,000ft long with strong turns around other wells and ending horizontal with a placement accurate to less than 10ft is pretty common place now, I completed one last month.
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12 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:
That's pretty much it for most people - the average car on the roads is about 10 years old so that's a long tail for things to trickle down even as EV sales are going through the roof it will be 5-10 years before most of us find ourselves potentially owning one. Grumbling about the purchase price if you were never going to buy a brand new ICE vehicle either is daft.
This was pretty much what I meant when I said they were beyond the reach of most people, for a run about if I could get a second hand EV for around the £5-6K mark which my current Civic cost I would seriously consider it, most of my trips are short and I could charge at home so it would do what I want out of a run about (I won't even pretend the 90 or Silverado are sensible, they aren't I have them because I want to!, just as I expect most people have there LR's as well). I am sure prices will come down as they filter into the secondhand market and by that time there will also be a knowledge base on what is likely to go wrong with different models as they age, I am sure some models will have electrics that corrode of break down over time (and probable abuse) to fail just after the warrantee runs out or something similar, just as conventional car have there faults as well, they will just be different faults and a knowledge of fixes or workarounds that can be done will build up. I don't get any sort of company vehicle allowance and unless they invent a car that can fly and land on a helipad I won't be using one to get to work, it would just be for shopping etc.
At the moment a quick Ebay search for "electric car" suggests prices start at around 9 with most in the 15-20 or more range for full electric, I probable haven't found the best prices but they are clearly still to pricey for me at the moment.
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It's so clearly not the vehicle in the description it's incredible anyone would even look at it.
Getting valid insurance would be almost impossible when the list of modifications would include, chassis, engine, gearbox, axles, steering , body work etc etc from the vehicle identified on the VIN. That amount of changes should need a IVA at least and I very much doubt it has one.
May not be stolen but defiantly a fraudulent registration.
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So far as far as I can see EV is good for more affluent people (purchase price is still beyond large parts of the population) who will often have off road parking and the ability to charge from home. For it to roll down further more on street charging is still needed or a lot more public spaces charging points (these do seem to be appearing).
I run a 90, a Silverado and a civic as a run around and if the purchase prices were comparable for a civic sized vehicle I would seriously consider one for a run around, generally shorter trips so a reduced capacity battery would probable work, but at the moment the difference in price buys more fuel than I am likely to use in many years so it just not viable.
In the village I live (very old but with significant building in the 60's) less than half the houses have off street parking, on street parking is very much at a premium is some areas so mostly people can't park out side there houses, also I know the power supply is already stressed, I had to contact Western Power to upgrade from an 80 to a 100amp house supply for the lathe and was told I was lucky to get it as my local transformer still had some capacity left, most didn't and the area supply was also close to limit, I have know idea how they make there calculations but I expect they assume people only use a certain percentage of there capacity at any one time with some surge capacity (the infamous FA cup half time kettle surge). Wholesale charging, probable all at a similar time is probable going to melt things, the power supply can be fixed but it will take time and money.
Seems to be several stories about at the moment that the cost of charging could soon approach the cost of filling with petrol, I am assuming this is probable exaggerated to some extend and is probably also using the cost to charge from a premium rate charger rather than home. For those of you that actually use EV's just how much is this exaggerated?.
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3 hours ago, landroversforever said:
I think Fride has nailed the issue on some kind of modular swap-out type battery. They’re just built so far into the car. Which is an advantage in many ways, just the opposite of what’s needed for this idea.
Would it be more of a viable option for commercial / HGV size vehicles as and when they get out and about, I would assume they would either need a serious sized charger or take a long time to charge, I know some of this could be done in drivers required rest times but is there a electric HGV about yet that can drive all day and be charged in a credible time. I know my sisters ex used to drive HGV's and sometime double drive to get places quicker by avoiding stopping for long runs, a quick change out of batteries would seem a good idea in theory. With a bigger chassis and weight / size being less of an issue than on a small car on first look it would appear to be more of an option unless I am missing something.
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If the ride height has changed at all the steering wheel alignment will also change and after doing that amount of work as cackshift has said something is bound to be slightly differently aligned somewhwhere, maybe worth driving it a bit and then rechecking all the bolt torques to let things settle in before adjusting it though.
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If you have difficulty with availability let me know, I have the correct taps LH and RH so can soon make a couple up, from memory last time I made some I bored out a couple of M16 nuts and rethreaded them (they were some sort of nuts I had about anyway), doesn't take long to make them from scratch out of a piece of bar though.
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17 minutes ago, steve200TDi said:
A few pictures here, when I did mine. I opted to put load bearing axle stands at the front of the chassis and slot in the blue ones under the chassis just for safety.
Steve
Just putting HSE head on, this is a good plan, provided you can get them in at least during the time the vehicle is unattended, you never know who might decided to lean or climb on the vehicle. I have changed a front axle this way in the past, anyone considering the job make sure the axle stands are up to it and wide enough to be stable, in the earlier picture you can see they are on one of the higher extension holes, ideally a bigger stand could have been used but we have to work with what we have. Also make sure they are on something solid, a good concrete drive way is fine, mine ended up sinking into the tarmac drive way until I put heavy steel plates under them. Getting the axle off and back on will require a bit of pushing and shoving and if things slip its not going to end well, there is a lot of weight held up quite high.
No one really likes to think about safety but its better than hearing about people loosing body parts, plenty of stories about near disasters and accidents on here from certain members which should act as warnings, they can end up amusing if the level of injury is low but sometimes they could easily have been serious to the point of death if it had gone slightly different.
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Not sure how it would mount on the chassis, I expect a fair amount of modification and fabrication would be required, I think it has been done on series vehicles to add power steering so might be worth a search for info there.
They do work at a higher pressure though so you would have to fit a new power steering pump as well, not sure how this would work out. Depends on what engine you are running and what you are starting with.
Does depend on why you want to do this anyway, if you have a scrap P38 and want to use the bits then just transfer the lot pumps and pipes included, if not just buy or repair the standard power steering box then its all simple, not sure about parts availability or prices over your way which might also be a factor.
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20 hours ago, western said:
On my Motorsport EV course for Recovery crews, we were told that No EV currently built can be towed with wheels on the road, it has to be a full lift, so the motor cannot turn & become a generator & damage the motor/EV system, in my case I can spec lift one end & put my full lift dolly wheel set under the other end.
I wasn't aware of that but it makes sense, which makes a short term plug in battery (or connection to recovery vehicle?) and valid idea even if all it does is let the vehicle be powered onto a trailer or recovery vehicle, easier quicker and safer than having to winch it on, this assume it is broken down due to lack of electrons.
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I would expect if the winch has been removed the spool valve and pump have also been removed but definitely worth tracing the hoses before unbolting things.
What you have left is almost certainly the hydraulic oil tank so I would expect there to be two hoses, one to a spool (control) valve and one to the pump, the pumps are normally on the back of the transfer box and if its still there worth a few quid but will need a bit more work and some replacement parts to remove. The spool valve could have been in the cab but are often in the front wing. There might be wiring for a level gauge but not seen that before.
Hopefully the other ends of the hoses will be capped but might well have just been left open, the hoses them selves should be quite easy to trace to the other ends.
As advised check what's in the tank before unbolting it, if it's full it will be heavy, any hydraulic oil will need to go to a proper oil disposal point. Once it is out take a picture there might be someone on here who wants it for there project so you might get a bit of money back!.
A few pictures of what you can see would let people point you more directly in the right direction.
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Would it be technically possible to have a plug in the boot where an auxiliary battery could be connected capable of moving the vehicle to a safe place (couple of miles?) probable at reduced power.
Sort of like a jump start battery but I expect bigger and then driving in the equivalent of limp mode.
If a standard fitting could be agreed (not likely with out regulations requiring it) something like this could be carried by break down services and fitted and then retrieved by a trained fitter, I doubt they would be cheap.
Kind of expecting someone to tell me it would work out to heavy and the power draw would be to much but though I would ask those who know more than me!.
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Would a normal oil can like this work or will the fluid destroy the seals?.
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1 hour ago, FridgeFreezer said:
Depends on the breakdown company I'd guess, there's definitely small vans with diesel gensets in the back that will come out & charge you up, and I imagine that will be bigger and bigger business in future.
Someone did prove you can charge a Tesla by towing it behind a V8 Mercedes but it takes a lot of oomph to put kilowatts back into a battery that way.
There was a picture going round on Facebook that supposedly showed a car being recharged with a diesel generator towed by a diesel van which got lots of flack about it negating any green credentials, the counter claim was it was a large battery pack being used not a generator, was still a diesel van though. No idea which claim is correct but I would assume some sort of battery pack could be used, just not sure if they are, diesel generator is probable cheaper to buy. I would assume in the future this sort of service would be available from all the breakdown companies once EV's are more the norm.
As far as I am aware you can get fined for running out of fuel on a motorway with out reasonable excuse (such as a massive traffic jam etc) so can't see why this wouldn't also apply to electric vehicles.
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I made a few enquires yesterday and apparently the rider is fairly notorious locally for ranting and swearing at other people, particularly any drivers she meets head on in a lane, always forces the driver to reverse and if they try and move forward at all lets go about them having to give her at least 2m, these are Devon lanes and an old village so it is physically impossible to give 2m on just about all roads. Most riders walk into a field gate way to let a car pass slowly and give a wave to the car and consider a closer but slower pass acceptable. Never moves aside to let anyone past and shouts at any one moving up behind her (I think I have actually ended up following her for about 1/2 mile before I turned off a while back and though it was inconsiderate riding at the time but since the 90 isn't exactly quite stayed well back anyway and didn't connect the two incidents). Dogs barking has also been a source of a four letter rants for scaring the horse (apparently one dog was even inside some ones car at the time and she sat on the horse next to the still barking dog to give the rant, and the horse never seemed bothered in the slightest). I got this from another horse rider and she isn't well liked in there community either as they get some of the misplaced complaints about behaviour.
The barrier is going to be discussed at the next parish council meeting (confirmed it is a Parish council thing), not expecting much, I expect a tight budget will stop it if nothing else, but the point has been made.
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1 hour ago, Nonimouse said:
Nice Silverado
2004 Z71 model, 5.3 vortex engine and converted to RHD by a previous owner at a silly price.
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23 minutes ago, Happyoldgit said:
Photo shows ok now Sean. Ok I'm getting old(er) and easily confused but the hedge confuses me. Is the pavement the only way to navigate from beyond where your truck is to where the car is situated?
By car the way is to go round via the old road through the village, the two estates where built 40 years apart and the hedge is now protected, also I believe the residents in my half objected and kept the road from being a through road when the newer estate was built so just a pedestrian access was made. I expect when the first houses where built in the 60's they were planning to extend at some point and no one was fussy about ripping out ancient hedges, by the 80's things had changed and access to the new estate is off a different road. I can understand why cycles and horses use the road as they are both dead ends so only local residential traffic, the entire village is a 20mph limit, typically this is often ignored as just about anywhere, I always do keep to the limit if for no other reason than that the 90 and truck are very distinctive so easily identified.
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1 hour ago, western said:
The attachment doesn't seem to work.
I assume that is the picture that didn't come out right, hopefully it will show correctly this time.
1 hour ago, Happyoldgit said:Same could apply to any forum or social media group. What we need to be mindful of is the usual 'them v us' echo chamber and filter bubbles.
I know what you mean but my experience with cycling forums and posts is anything even mildly critical of a cyclist will be met with a large volume of abuse, they will defend anything and make it the motorists fault!, where motorists might slang off cyclists at time (sometimes justified, often not) they will also come down on bad driving from other motorists as well even from with in there own particular interest. I have no experience of horsey groups, not my interest so can't comment directly on them. It is definitely a minority of all groups (including 4x4 and LR drivers) that give a bad name to the rest of the responsible ones.
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Any ideas?
in Defender Forum (1983 - 2016)
Posted
Fuel may not be coming out, if the leak is on the pick up side it will just slowly drain the line back to the tank, may only be a very small leak as you are having no issues whilst actually running, on a series vehicle I had a small rust hole on the pick up pipe in the fuel tank that took ages to find.