[OT, Horse riding rules?.]

Thanks for the replies.

Well the answers so far are pretty much what I though they would be except the bit about riders not being liable for anything damage they do, good to get some sort of confirmation though.

Really not worth putting it to insurance as its just one more scratch and dent to join the others, if she had apologised I would have just shrugged it off but I got a bunch of obscenities instead. I expect if I tried to make any claim it would fail anyway as I can't prove who it was, just my word and description so very unlikely to go through, all that would happen is my no claims taking a hit. Similarly I expect reporting it to the police would be a waste of time as I can't prove anything. I have some CCTV so will be looking into extending it to cover more, one looking at the front of my garage would incidentally cover the car and pavement, but not anyone else's property so hopefully not fall foul of any privacy laws, a video is pretty hard to dispute as a record.

Always two sides to any incident but hitting a parked car is kind of hard to get out of, even if the horse was spooked by a cat its still a loss of control, I am happy it was a genuine accident but still her accident not my parked car's accident.

There used to be a double offset barrier in the entrance to the footpath but this was removed to allow a person on a mobility scooter through a few years ago (who has since died), I will talk to the parish council to see if it can be put back, probable not on disability access rules.

43 minutes ago, David Sparkes said:

You will find that in the UK, 'rider control of a Horse' is not the same as driver control of a vehicle.

Yes, do look at the BHS site, but you will find that in UK law a horse is accepted as NEVER being under full and precise control like a car is.
The law recognises that horses do have minds of their own and will sometimes act independently of their rider wishes.

When these instances occur there is no insurance cover, in that the insurance company will refuse your claim for any occurrence where the rider is still seated, or holding the reins if the horse is being led.
As I say, visit the BHS site.

If you get into any future verbal exchange with a horse rider I suggest that your first action is to put your phone on video, as I expect this will also record speech. I wouldn't hold the phone 'up' in an obvious manner, it is any threatening, aggressive, and abusive language you need to record, so hold the phone down by your side, perhaps facing the hose and rider. A visual image of the rider is the second priority.
It is on the basis of this evidence that you can make a complaint to the Police, if you wish to do so. It is no good deciding to make a complaint 'after the incident' if you do not have any evidence, so collecting any evidence leaves both options open, not collecting any evidence cuts out any future choice.

Regarding riding on the pavement, and any pedestrian cut though, this should be passed to the local highway authority, although a note to the local Parish Council is not a totally wasted effort. The HA should be aware of any 'conditions of use' regarding these public highways.

Regards.

So what does any insurance cover, surely this means that any damage no matter how caused is not covered presumable it only covers something the horse does AFTER the rider gets or is thrown of and it runs wild?. If this had been done to my car it would have run into a £1000 plus claim I expect with panel and body work costs now and I would be expected to claim off my own insurance taking the hit on my no claims even if I could prove who had actually done it?. Under that interpretation intentionally riding a horse through a narrow gap scratching a car would be still not be the riders fault?. 

I didn't record anything at the time as I had expected it to be quite civilised and was shocked when it became abusive so suddenly and for no obvious reason and didn't even think of recording anything.

 

https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/rules-about-animals-horse-riders.html#:~:text=You MUST NOT take a,where available (see Crossings).

Well that pretty much settles that one, I would assume this would have an impact on an insurance claim as well if I was going to do that, "damage caused whilst riding illegally" although under the advice above that still wouldn't be covered.

 

For reference this is the pavement section, with my truck parked roughly where the 90 was, looking again the pavement is roughly 4ft wide not 3ft so should have been plenty of room, its normally me that cuts the hedge even though it is not mine as the council don't (the wall side is mine) I think I will allow the top to grow down a bit lower to about 6ft or so, high enough for all but the tallest pedestrians but more difficult for horses.

 

 

[OT, Horse riding rules?.]

Sort of off topic so if mods want to delete feel free.

Yesterday my 90 got hit by a horse, it was locked, hand brake on and parked by the side of the road outside my house at the time, the horse was being ridden down the pavement and appears to have been spooked slightly by one of the many cats round here, it moved sideways into the 90 and left a dent and scratch down the side of the 90 and flipped the door mirror round (horse and rider were uninjured), I assume the scratch was from the stirrup it was about that height, but was quite clearly fresh. When I challenged the rider, about the damage I got a earful of language which the swear filter on here would have fun with (I work on an oil rig and haven't heard anything that bad for a long time), but amounted to its my fault for owning a car, I should be parking further out into the road to give her more room on the pavement (pavements about 3ft wide and the door mirror was a couple of inches on the road side of the curb stones), she isn't responsible in anyway as its a horse which does what it wants and its always the cars fault anyway (even if it was parked in this case) and that I could go forth and multiple about any damage claim, refused to give and details and rode off. Just up from my house is a pedestrian cut through to another dead end road and several horses regularly ride down the pavement to use this as a short cut, most are quite pleasant but this incident has widdled me off a bit. This is a pavement and not a shared space for cyclists although they regularly use it as well along with a few motor bikes, to be fair the motor bike riders do go through at walking pace, slower than most of the cyclists.

To be honest in this case the 90 has enough dents and scratches that one more doesn't really matter but I normally park my car in the same space and I would care about that getting damaged in the same way, it has collected a few mysterious dents and scratches at about the same height but I couldn't be sure where from (I feel CCTV might be on the cards). It's not that big a village so I probable could trace the rider but in this case I don't need the aggravation involved in taking it further.

I am sure there are some horse riders or people connected to horse riding on the forum so question is, what are the rules for horses?. First is it legal to ride them on the pavement?, second do riders have any responsibility for damage caused by them or the horse?, third can they (rider!) be required to leave details after causing damage as a motor vehicle driver would be required to do?. This particularly rider was graphically specific on her view to the answers.

I would add this isn't a dig at horse riders in general almost every one I have ever met on a lane has been pleasant and we have been able to work out passing each other sensibly.

 

[Electric conversion prices coming down?]

I can't see how the government (which every party is in power) won't end up charging EV's in some form or another, current estimate (RAC) is they get approx £30billion a year from VED and direct taxation on motorists, way over the total spent on roads so make a big profit which funds other government spending, the spending on roads will hopefully not decrease any more (you already just about need a 4x4 for some of the country roads round here) so the money has to be replaced from somewhere. What form this will take I have no idea but I would guess the zero VED rate will be dropped for "luxury" or higher power EV's and then slowly increased and get brought in for smaller EV's as revenue for normal vehicles decreases.

One thing I wonder about and I expect someone on here will be able to answer, I have a private driveway so could charge a car at home, most of the village I live in doesn't so have to park on roads, running a cable out the window and across the pavement and over to a car parked on the other side of the road is not going to happen, the safety and legal issues would be huge, and you just know someone will "trip" on one and try and claim compensation. So how much do commercial charging stations actually charge for power (compared to the cost of getting it from a plug socket at home) and would it be viable or even possible at the moment in most places to run a EV only using only commercial charging points?.

I suspect the end of life for most EV's will be when parts or often one specific part is unavailable and can't be viably made by a different company, I believe this is already the case with older Tesla cars display screens, as technology changes its likely that some older tech will be banned or restricted (how many working battery drills have you binned because the battery has died and are no longer available). When EV's are more common and a bigger volume I expect some clever person will be able to create work arounds to install new display screens or new control modules in older vehicles ( a modern version of megasquirt!) but no idea how or if it would be financially viable or something along the line of remapping for extra performance as you can do on a conventional vehicle, I would guess it is mostly a software / firmware and interfacing issue, wouldn't have a clue how to do it myself but I bet other people are already doing it to some extent even if not legally.

[Electric conversion prices coming down?]

Not going to claim any knowledge of EV systems but my immediate thought is if you lift the power system out of a relatively small car like the leaf and put it in a much bigger and heavier car like a LR there must be some serious compromises to performance. The right gearing can obviously get it moving but I would assume this would be at the cost of range, higher speed, motor life??.

At the moment I still don't think EV systems are there yet for serious use by most people, big premiums in price which those in the know seem to suggest would take 8-9years to get back compared to conventional technology, charging infrastructure growing but still not there and limitations in range particularly if towing or loading a vehicle up. They are improving though and I would expect as the technology becomes more main stream and upsizes it will become cheaper, battery technology is improving rapidly, just look at what a mobile phone does now compared to 5 years ago. Maybe in a few years but not for me yet. Current fuel prices are a political anomaly mostly to do with refining capacity which is likely to resolve in time (might be an out break in peace which seems unlikely or the western world will build more refining capacity).

[EV conversions]

13 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

@TSD had a spreadsheet that worked it out I think - it's pretty much an exponential curve the faster you go and does give the lie to some of the claims you hear in the pub about how fast people's Defenders will go

Been a long time since I did air flow dynamics calculations and then they were mostly the other way round, getting air through holes not things moving in air.

It won't be quite exponential (though similar) at a certain point the air/fluid reach's its Reynolds number and there will be a step increase (something you try and avoid in industry), at that point the air has becomes turbulent and friction significantly increases, probable at different speeds for different bit of the vehicle. With most modern cars a lot of work has gone on in wind tunnels to avoid this as far as possible and to as high a speed as possible. This is one of the reason modern cars all look pretty similar in shape and for most modern medium sized cars the most efficient speed has increased to 60-70mph ish or more depending on specific engine / car etc, the old 50mph most efficient number was more based on 70's American cars with the aerodynamics of a brick, as for an older LR's just don't go there!, generally sudden changes in shape are bad.

It is quite noticeable that on EV's this has been taken up in a big way, also the rolling resistance has been reduced as much as possible with narrow hard tyres, I am sure they comply to requirements but do wonder how the braking on some compares to similar sized conventional vehicles with "normal " sized tyres and probable a lighter road weight, I expect more technology has been used to balance it out, but does one just comply and the other significantly exceed?, would assume this sort of thing would flag in the safety tests?.

Still not convinced EV tech is there yet for it to be viable and economic on mass and the infrastructure to support it certainly isn't (guy up the road was refused a fast charge port as apparently the transformer and cables don't have enough spare capacity in the area, not likely to be cheap to upgrade), have to admit things are improving though.

[O/T Wildlife in the workshop]

Even if the bee keepers don't want the swarm they can probable advise on a safe and humane way of moving it on.

I get the odd rat in the workshop, generally trap them outside, the joys of living in the countryside, I use live catch traps as I don't mind the mice and we get hedgehogs as well (was a bugger getting it back out the trap without hurting it when I caught one by accident!).

The rats soon become ex rats!.

Not sure if the neighbours cat counts as wild life but it comes in to visit now and then, I generally push it out as I don't want it to get hurt but cats just do what they want any way.

Never had a slow worm in the workshop but plenty in the garden, odd grass snake as well, made me jump first time I saw one as I wasn't quite sure what it was, mostly they are small but had the odd bigger one, fortunately never had an adder, they are about in the area but not my garden so far.

 

[Land Rover vs cyclists]

13 minutes ago, Happyoldgit said:

If the video showed a small to medium size electric powered family saloon passing what appear to be elderly cyclists on a narrow country lane that had a damp surface at the same distance and speed would there still be accusations of hidden agendas and potential footage fiddling I wonder. 
 

Possible depending on how it was represented but I take your point. A vehicle like a LR often appears to be going faster than it actually is due to being bigger and noisier compared to general smaller modern cars.

Would say I doubt footage actually shown in trial would be fiddled with knowingly but what is released and the rebroadcast by various news media may well be even if only to make it appear more dramatic.

For contrast with this case where the driver got 5 points and over £1000 in fines even though there was no contact have a look at some other clips where there was no prosecution.

There is a particularly good one on Youtube buy Ashley Neal "A Cyclist Knocked Off on Purpose by an Ex Police Officer?" don't know how to do a link but I expect someone else can!.

Ashley does a good break down of what each party does wrong and how each could have avoided the accident but in summary an apparent ex police office started to pass a cyclist but didn't get past, pulled in on him and knocked him off, she admits she knew he was there but blames him for not getting out of her way and damaging her car (very vocally! and without any enquire about if he was OK), police apparently decided she had done nothing wrong, not even enough for an official warning. 

Difficult to balance the level of points and fines between the two cases, above all else the law (and enforcement) should be applied evenly to all at times it appears to be very random.

[Land Rover vs cyclists]

12 hours ago, smallfry said:

Thats an interesting version of the video, it is not the same that was doing the rounds a while ago. It has been speeded up quite a lot. The version I saw had him slowing down to almost walking speed.

As far as I am concerned, there is an agenda here.

Just viewed it again after reading about it possible being speeded up and have to say it looks like it possible has been. When you watch the camera swing round to view the LR driving away, twice the camera wearer raises his hand to gesture at the vehicle, both of these seem to be very jerky and fast, not natural speed, not an expert on interpretation of video so this might be a factor of the slower frame rate or similar but you it seems more than you get if you watch other similar video on YouTube.

As to people with an agenda, don't forget the police also have there own agenda and play politics when it suits them (generally at higher levels not street level), at the moment it is good politics to be seen to protect / promote "green" transport such as cycling at the expense of "dirty" transport. The CPS are also well know for bringing cases that suit them even when the evidence is iffy and dropping cases that don't even when the evidence is pretty solid. Not going to suggest that was the case here for a prosecution but the way a case is publicised during and after court is also very much playing politics and proving they are being proactive on a certain stance.

Only the driver knows what he was thinking (or not) at the time, decisions to plead guilty aren't always based on if you think you actually are, sometimes people can't afford an effective defence and even if they won that defence would cost them more than the the fine would be if they plead guilty so it isn't cost effective. You would be unlikely to qualify for any legal aid in this sort of case.

[Land Rover vs cyclists]

6 minutes ago, mad_pete said:

That’s fast to be coming at cyclists on a lane that wide. I’m okay with that being called not enough care and attention.

People are people pretty much in all cases and in this case motorists and cyclists most are fine some are muppets in both camps.

I’d be stopped or dead slow if I was in mine.  
I think she did fall off because of the stop and the cleats but it’s still too fast.  The front guy stops as he is worried about the car and she swerves out she’s probably looking at serious injury so why not have a bit more care from the driver? 

I agree he could have been a bit slower and I would have been if it had been me so "due care and attention", but 5 points and a £1000 fine seems a bit excessive for just the pass.

The rider falling off was not his fault, the guy in front stopped and she clearly didn't have enough time to stop safely, which is driving / riding too close, if it had been three cars and the front one stopped and the second crashed into the back of it it would be the driver of the middle car at fault for being to close and/or not paying attention, the driver coming the other way may also have been at fault but that is a separate issue. There aren't many valid excuses for not being able to stop safely in time if the vehicle in front does.

The journalism is pretty bad with some fundamental inaccuracies which in its self is an issue but depressingly a quite common one, I would suggest written by some one who never bothered to actually check any facts or was trying to push it for more sensationalism or a personal agenda.

I agree that there are idiots on both sides of the arguments, I would like to think most drivers and most cyclists are sensible and at least try to look out for each other.

Whilst I am writing I have just watched a motor bike riding down the pavement past my house and through a pedestrian only access to another road, it was on L plates and if he doesn't work out motor bikes need to be on roads not pavements soon unlikely to either get or keep a full licence for long I think.

[Land Rover vs cyclists]

By law now he should have passed with 1.5m of clearance......

If you point out that this is physically impossible on many roads on a cycling forum, you get abuse back, presumable in this case he should have stopped in the middle of the road and let them pass him as that is the only way to comply with the 1.5m rule. They are also legally allowed to ride in the middle of the lane (what you are supposed to do there if you are head on on a single carriage way lane like the one in the video is any ones guess, stop and stare at each other until some one starves I assume), riding side by side with the outer cyclist taking up position on the out side edge of the lane is also legal on two lane roads and over taking with less 1.5m is an offence, this effectively blocks any over take on many roads less than 6m wide (most B roads and below in Devon), there is no specific requirement for them to pull in and allow traffic to pass unless THEY feel it is safe for them to do so, there is a requirement for slow moving vehicles (most tractors) to pull in and clear traffic but not cyclists (I have been pulled in for this whilst towing a 3tonne trailer up a hill with a 2 1/4 diesel S2 at 20mph, it didn't go any faster!).

I am all for protecting cyclists and acknowledge there are some dangerous drivers out there but there has to be common sense as well as some give and take, especially in country roads where 1.5m is not possible, in this case it seems quite clear she fell off because the rider in front stopped and she couldn't get here feet off the pedals in time, neither of the other riders seemed to be effected by a "dangerous turbulence" from the LR passing.

[loff master cylinder]

On 4/15/2022 at 10:43 PM, Bowie69 said:

Simple hydraulics, you can't make it easier without changing the stroke length/bore size.

Not sure you could really attribute 'not fit', plenty of stuff you bolt to a car needs you to adjust other stuff outside of factory spec.

As you say simple hydraulics, at a guess the master will be a smaller bore so the same foot pressure and travel on the pedal would produce more pressure but less volume, i.e. to operate the clutch requires less foot pressure but more travel hence lower bite point. Similarly I expect the slave cylinder is a bigger bore so to operate it requires less psi but more volume of fluid. If you fitted both at the same time you may run out of travel before they operate effectively. Big springs would also reduce the force require to operate the pedal but would reduce the effect of the pedal returning to the up position, that would just be a case of balancing the springs so the pedal returns up effectively with the minimum force required.

[Rear axle case swap]

What do you use as the electrolyte?. Seen various suggestions but what every you are doing seems to work very well.

[Rear Shocks]

Looking at the picture, I am guessing new  springs as well??. With new springs and no weight on the back end (engine is in I assume from the exhaust) the shocks could well be at there maximum extension, if they are they will not allow the bushes to sit in fully, try sitting on the back of the chassis when you fit them it might be enough. Also as above the bushes will compress quite a bit.

Final point both bolts should be the same length, I expect you have checked that already but worth making sure.

[Fitting a Fairey Capstan Winch]

There is another way to get it off but it can be a bit risky.

First you need a good ring spanner which fits well, from memory its a whitworth size but not sure which (1"??), the thread is quite fine for the size as well.

You don't say if it is petrol or diesel, if petrol disconnect the coil, if diesel ensure the fuel solenoid is disconnected or shut, in short make sure the engine won't actually start!, turn the starter a few times to make sure it turns but doesn't actually start.

Fit the spanner on the starter dog and turn it so it is resting against the chassis leg (you may want to add a piece of wood), exactly how it fits depends on the length of the spanner, then flick the starter motor over, it should knock the dog loose. If it doesn't work you can get increasingly violent by giving the spanner a bit of a running start before it hits the chassis.

The down sides is if the spanner flicks off it is going to go somewhere very fast.....closing the bonnet is probable a good idea, also if your chassis isn't great it could get a lot worse quickly. The consequences if the engine actually fires up could also be pretty bad as well.

I have done this successfully but if anyone else wants to do it just make sure you realise the potential risks and be careful !!.

[Yet another eBay scam - warning]

I agree the amount of scams is silly and how they keep on getting away with it is unbelievable, with the sums involved it should be possible to track the money, you may not ultimately get it back as it is likely to bounce faster than the authorities can keep up but at a minimum they should be able to trace and shut down accounts it goes through, gets difficult if it goes overseas but all the UK ones should be fair game.

A while back I posted up a similar scam with a lathe, the pictures had been cropped from a previous eBay ad, I know exactly where the lathe actually is so knew it was fake beyond question, it was advertised in the Shetlands possible to discourage viewings. I got very similar responses, ignored request to view it, said I was through Sumburgh regularly so could drop in when ever suited him, nothing. I reported it to eBay as did the original seller who's pictures were used, the ad got removed but I have no idea if it was buy the "seller" or eBay.

If you want a good laugh, there is a scam busters site and what they do to see how far scammers will go is hilarious.

[Yet another eBay scam - warning]

Just now, monkie said:

Yes the ebay account was a new one, but it was his email address, year of birth and location that showed his identity. What a fool. 

That does assume they email account isn't a fake or highjacked from some one else.

[Sort of a tool. Electronics on the fritz.]

I am guessing if it is cold in the workshop it is also damp, this could be causing a partial short somewhere (possible in association with dust as above), not enough to cause a terminal escape of magic smoke but enough to cause it to shut down, having it in doors for a while might have dried it out enough to work.

We regularly have this issue with our offshore units, if they are shut down for several weeks or sometimes months the recommended procedure is to power them up with the blower and pressurisation on, turn on the heaters and leave them for 12 hours. Sometimes the client leaves things to the last minute to get us onboard and we have to rush this, on one job that meant I lost a Sparc station, PC, chart recorder, and terminal server to terminal bangs or pops (all going on the client bill) and only just had enough equipment left to start working, they still left it to the last minute again on the next job.

Assuming it is easily portable, might be worth keeping it in the house when not in use and seeing if it then works OK when taken back outside, if that works damp is probable the reason and either get something more robust, wait for warmer weather or store it inside when possible is the only solution I can see. If it has no effect then I am talking rubbish and just ignore me!.

[Reporting eBay scams]

This doesn't directly involve a LR but does cover issue which others have had with LR vehicle scams.

I regularly scan eBay for prices on industrial lathes amongst other things, a few years ago I bought a Harrison M500 with a friend and now it has cropped up on eBay apparently for sale again.

The pictures are identical to the ones from the original listing including the workshop in the background, but the new seller is in a completely different part of the country than the original one so defiantly not the same person. The actual lathe in the pictures is in my friends workshop (not the one in the pictures) and most definitely not for sale.

I have reported it to eBay but doubt they will do much as you can't explain why you are reporting it specifically.

It's eBay item number: 154729451605

I am mostly concerned that others are going to get scammed by the listing, at best the seller is not picturing the actual lathe for sale at worst they will take deposits or even the entire price and then disappear, bet they won't take PayPal!.

 

I know similar listing have happened for Land Rovers (and other higher value vehicles) using pictures from legitimate listings so just wondering if there is anything else that can be done to report it.

Just to see what happens I have asked the seller if I can view the lathe in person.

 

If the mods consider this to far off topic feel free to delete it.

[The "Pass the Bucket" 4x4 For Sale on Ebay Thread]

5 hours ago, missingsid said:

Oddly I have been looking at the remains of my hybrid S2 on my drive (scrapped years ago as it was registered on the S2 logbook not the RRC shame) and thought of this kind of vehicle. Except I would use the LR panels to rebody a dodgy damaged TVR or something rather than try to keep it LR based. Oh and I'd keep the tyres covered, that is ridiculous.

My thoughts are the same if you want something like that, get a sports car of some sort and stick LR panels on it, then at least all the running gear etc is good, with the best will in the world a LR with beam axles is hardly going to be "sporty".

Can't see how you would get that down the road with out being pulled and if that happens I hope all the paperwork is in order, IVA/SVA, modified car insurance etc. With those tyre alone its going to struggle to turn or gove over normal road bumps.

[JLR Q2 Losses]

4 hours ago, jeremy996 said:

Nothing major to disagree with there but there is some heavy money, (via US based lobby companies funded by petrochemicals), being used to decry the electric car. Politicians are not helping as their fundamental lack of scientific knowledge makes them prey for every media savvy quack out there.

In pure energy terms a BEV is massively more efficient at moving from A to B than any ICE vehicle and considerably more efficient than a H2 powered vehicle, (either ICE or fuel cell BEV). As a general statement, technical sophistication moves from a large scale inefficient systems, think steam engines, line shafting and looms, to smaller scale, highly efficient, distributed systems, like the domestic electric drill, so a BEV is likely to be on the right side of history. Massively more efficient than a BEV private car would be an electrically driven mass-transit system, but there are social pressures in the way there.

At the moment to get a significant change to greener transport is going to require some sort of technological break through, options at the moment with CURRENT technology just aren't working, they are though getting better. Battery technology has moved on a lot from the days of electric milk floats, just look at mobile phone batteries. I have no idea where or when the next break through will come (if I did I would be putting money in stocks and cashing in!). I personally think H2 has a lot of potential but it still needs more development to make it more main stream.

Different technologies have different plus's and negatives, various bodies around the world have vested interests in certain things and will put money into promoting them and dumping on others, the current push is for electric vehicles with people in power pushing the positives and ignoring the negatives, all technologies have some negatives.

The lack of knowledge amongst politicians (and some of various companies own spokespeople) can be unbelievable. I have worked in the oil industry for over 25 years the pure garbage that was spouted about fracking was incredible, there are serious issues about it but not the ones various campaigners were quoting, just about any one in the industry could disprove most of the campaigners claims but equally I could have rubbished the claims from some of the pro spokes people. Just as a rider I don't think it will ever be viable in the UK for various economic reason. 

Sadly many politician around the world will back a certain technology or policy because it gets them votes as it is perceived as good and they need to be seen to do something even if the reality is its never going to achieve what they say and all the evidence actually says a different approach is better or at least more realistic (often in terms of time spans to achieve things).

[JLR Q2 Losses]

I wonder now much of Tesla's business case relies on getting large payments from other manufactures for credits like this, doubt anyone will find out "real" numbers as they will get buried in corporate financing and accounting (that's not a dig at Tesla all large companies arrange there accounts to show what they want to show to some extent). Must add quite bit to there bottom line, are they viable with out it, what would the cars cost with with this or tax subsidies?.

I have always assumed (and most articles agree) that the manufacturing emissions for an electric vehicle would be considerable higher than than for a standard petrol or diesel vehicle, basic shell / trim etc will be largely the same but electric motors and batteries use a lot more rare (and often difficult to handle at end of life) materials than a standard alloy / iron block, which is largely recyclable.

Would be interesting to see numbers for total life C0 emission for equivalent vehicles say tesla verus Ford Mondeo from raw material to final end of life disposal with say a 15 year 200,000 mile life which includes electric generation using current average UK emissions per unit (with what ever the current average mix between wind/solar/gas/nuclear etc is), any spares repairs (servicing oil use etc against battery reconditioning / replacement) trouble is I expect any answer would end up so fudged by which ever side created it it would be meaningless.

[Drill bit Sharpener]

I have never got the hang of sharpening drills free hand, I can normally get there in the end but not quickly so I got one of these.

It started as a Chinese "G3" sharpener and will do from a couple of mm to 32mm it puts a good edge on but the drive motor died so hence got modified to run with a new motor and a belt.

For slightly blunt drills it only takes 30s or so to sharpen them and with a bit of care you get good result, primary edge, relief cut and split point, with proper knackered drills as below it takes a bit longer and I normally do free hand them to somewhere close first.

 

I promise it wasn't me that did this to the drill, the result of to much RPM and not enough cooling.

After a bit of work it got to this.

For big drills I use this.

It's from about mid 1950's and has a weird cut action but works really well once yet get the hang of it, the drill is rotated and the grinding wheel then spins but also moves across and in and out to put an edge on, the grinding wheel and the chuck need to be lined up and in sync which took a bit of experimenting to get right. It will do up to 3" drills, I have done quite a few around the 2-2 3/4" range and the bigger ones take a bit longer but work fine. It doesn't do a split point of any type so if you wanted one you would have to do it manually but mostly with that sort of size drill I am using them to open out a pilot hole I have drilled with something smaller anyway.

[What do you guys think of this ?]

I am sure I remember a thread several year ago about the best way to take or making payment for big sums from /to people you don't know (may not have been on here).

From memory one of the best methods was cash BUT paid over inside the bank and paid directly into your account with the other person still present, protects both sides, all banks have extensive CCTV systems so any one dodgy is unlikely to want to go in. Buyer and seller are in a fairly secure environment and neither side gets access to the other parties bank details. 

One of the concerns covered (not relevant in this case) was if you are going to pay cash and arrange to meet some one there is a chance they might be a bit late but a couple of other people do turn up.....

Finding a bank that is still open in the present time could be more difficult though!.

[Wrong Tool for the job...]

5 hours ago, simonr said:

Last week we were trying to (safely) remove a tyre from a 747 wheel (as you do!) but couldn't find the valve to deflate it.  It felt like the pressure was quite high - so we were discussing using a shaped charge to blow a hole in the tyre - from a distance.  That sounded a way-cool solution to me!  Unfortunately somebody found the valve under a cover.

Shape charges are fun and if you have access to the right stuff remarkable easy to make, we used to use basic ones for cracking rocks with minimal damage to anything else around, the more precise you want to be the more complex they get but the basic idea is simple. Percussive hammers are also quite good for that sort of thing as well as removing bolts in places you don't want to be when the bolt moves, think over grown nail gun, again simple to make in theory but get it wrong and you have a pipe bomb instead. Unfortunately also total illegal unless you have the correct licenses.

[Wrong Tool for the job...]

Serious message and entertaining all in one go, that's not bad going!.

Just hope that now it summer you and Nige don't start spreading fertilizer and working on the Land Rover at the same time the thoughts of what you could achieve with a sack of Ammonium Nitrate and a container of diesel at the same time would be spectacularly messy, and from the past record quite possible!.