GW8IZR

I drove a Hyundai i40 hire car for a week or so, it had lane control and distance sensing cruise control. Now I admit I didn't know it was fitted or turned on ( I just pressed a few buttons while bored ) and I thought there was something wrong with the steering at first as it sort of fought me to stay in the middle of the lane as against me wandering about. It wasn't perfect and it was better at night time for some reason but I drove it hundreds of miles just occasionally correcting it, overiding it to overtake and change lane on the motorway etc.. it basically pretty much drove itself without too much help. Now I know that's not an autonomous car nor is it intended to be but it shows the technology is coming.

there are driverless trains in use in many cities.

I was looking at the BMW e46 engine mounts, they use a vacuum and controller valve to significantly stiffen the mount once off tickover. I reckon that's something to consider even in the 90. FWIW I bought a set of those Glencoyne 'super mounts' and they are absolutely identical to Bearmach units.

No No No your mis understanding me .. I'm saying you can adjust out the bend and not realise its bent! Later on it bends further and starts ticking etc.... same with a cracked / damaged rocker, it can look OK for a while then fail catastrophically

Yes its frustrating when you change all the obvious bits and do everything right and it still has a problem, we've all been there.

timing belt snapped? you presumably had a collision - did you check the rockers and pushrods when you put it back together? you can adjust out a slightly bent pushrod at the tappet - clearances can be fine but not the right length and they can tick when bent. HTH

To be honest when I realised what the fault was I felt pretty relieved it hadn't come apart and taken my legs off! I reckon the shrapnel might have come through the hosing and tinwork but that's just me being over dramatic I expect :-) Anyway hopefully you will sort it out whatever the fault and if the box is out you may as well just bite the bullet and renew the lot. I have a little creak from my spigot bush from time to time and I'll be living with that ;-)

I had a fairly similar problem with a radial crack in the clutch cover - at high rpm it would open up and go out of shape, this would not allow the clutch to disengage untill the engine rpm dropped. From time to time it would basically jam the clutch in an engaged condition even though you could see and feel the release bearing work perfectly on the fingers. It was a brand new cover and I fitted and re fitted it a few times before eventually admitting to myself it must be the fault. Eventually I swapped the cover and it was fixed, I left the old cover outside in the rain at which point some rust identified the previously invisible crack.

And just like teleporting an old series one from 1950 to 2017 you choose not to re assemble the bits you don't like. don't re assemble the rusted parts .... don't re assemble the diseased or worn out organs......

Nice one, sorted it will be good for another 100K + miles ..

Its a fairly common failure and not the end of the world. On the ones I've done I've always been able to feel the blow by putting my hand on the back of the head/block. Even though the vac pump is only 12mths old it could be faulty, some spare parts are poor quality. Its a case of careful listening and looking, soot on the bulkhead is useful clue. HTH

have a careful feel and listen between the back of the cylinder head and the bulkhead, from your description it may be the head gasket. HTH

Its more related to impedance matching but yes a connection to a 'ground plane' is required. It does NOT need to be a DC connection, the connection is an RF connection which can be a capacitive connection. That's why a magnetic antenna will work just as well with an insulated cover on the magnet or as suggested .. with double sided tape or glue. (edit) lots of urban mith and folklore round this, often you will read things like connecting an earth wire direct to the chassis etc.. which are always masking another issue not a requirement for the function of the antenna..

Yes I think Procom sold a great many of those in the 90's when 200MHz trunked radio systems were nearly popular enough to make a living out of them. Thats the same spectrum that was sold off to make the DAB allocation. I probably have one of those antennas in the shed somewhere ;-) You have done exactly the right thing, get the probe outside and clear of the tinwork.

Yes its hard to define 'better' but in all cases an external antenna of almost any type will be better from a pure radio perspective. Of course more susceptible to physical damage and more likely to draw attention to the fact that the vehicle contains a saleable radio making it worse. Some sharkfin antennas use a dielectric block to electrically lengthen the physically short antenna element and tend to work well, they tend to be OEM stuff and not typical ebay fodder. Some sharkfin antennas are nothing more than an electrically short probe and an amplifier, they are no better than the very short magnetic antennas. The short magnetic antennas are not bad if mounted on the roof, in the clear ( away from roof racks etc.. ) and can be stuck to a defender roof with sealer or double sided tape they will work well enough. A whip antenna cut for DAB will still work well enough on normal FM and will be the 'best' RF performer, They should be mounted to the skin of the vehicle and they are very much better at ignoring the effects of vehicle noise. I always use Panorama antennas - the M8 modular base is practical and there are millions in service throughout the world. I have two GPS mounts on mine, a VHF comms antenna and the same but cut for DAB. With flexible whips they dont break but I no longer bounce my 90 of trees... or take it out in the rain..... The stick on windscreen antennas are not poor performers due to being vertical etc but they are poor because the length of the antenna element is closely coupled to the screen frame or bodywork. They are also screened from many directions by bodywork. This makes them poor in absolute terms and In TD5 equipped vehicles they are also more likely to be degraded by virtue of their proximity to the vehicle ECU. There is a significant amount of VHF noise generated by the TD5 ECU which can make any VHF installation a challenge. That is the single reason that my 90 rebuild has an earlier RF noise free engine, pity its not acoustically silent as I might be able to hear the DAB bitrate limitations ;-) HTH

Before I retired from industry, over many years I've heard and occasionally used the term vapourware. Vapourbuild and vapoursale were often used as well but not as common.

Just to be balanced on this NO shark fin antenna will work as well as a roof mounted 1/4 wave antenna at minimal SNR. They may well be convenient, practical and effective but at extremes of coverage which sadly means most of the UK they are not as good.

I just split mine from the roof mounted FM antenna and its fine. The splitter was from Amazon and cost about 20 quid - it has an amplifier which needs power from the radio. It wasn't this one but basically the same unit https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Car-Vehicle-Electronics/DAB-Aerial-Splitter-Amplifier-Adaptor-Radio-Active/B00U3T527O

I know what you mean, 2.5 petrol with a trick cam, gas flowed head, tubular exhaust manifold and a nice carb all set up on a rolling road - it wasnt much fun to drive and used a bit more fuel than the low compression v8 I replaced it with. I know Turner are very reputable but wonder if the claims are subjective from customers or actual dyno measurements, ive known people take clapped engines from competition cars and replace them with mildly tuned engines ( a bit like my example above ) They always report big improvements - strongly suspect they would see similar gains if they just fixed the engine back to standard. something like: Duff engine 40hp Standard engine 70hp tuned engine 77hp

I built my 90 as a daily driver for retirement and its fine for that but having retired there is still the reality of a longish regular 250 mile commute to my parents. This means an elderly BMW estate has joined it on the drive. The 90 cost me a lot of money and its spot on but under the circumstances, if I had spent as much money on my previous series 1 I think I would have had a 'nicer' vehicle with more character ... but hey thats what we can do with 20/20 hindsight :-)

shame it has to go but at least you can say 'its finished' My rebuild was completed years ago and I'm still tinkering with 'finishing' it! good luck with the sale and hope you find a colour blind customer :-)

I've never re fitted them myself as I prefer to be able to see whats going on and clean stuff as required. Stones and mug can get caught behind them which can be a nuisance as well. IME fitted or not, isn't going to be a life changing experience.

I did know that ;-) So I had to make a similar piece, a control coupling for a valve but the slot had to run both ways from the keyway. I machined it slightly oversize but the correct dimensions either side of the keyway, then used a ceramic slug to fill the void which allowed me to close off the ends with TIG. Once both ends were filled the ceramic was removed with a punch and dustpan/brush. Then cut the keyway and line bored to size after the event. Of course the TIG fill was very hard to machine to size and took for ever on my tiny lathe but it worked out in the end. I didn't think the keway was going to cut but it did in the end after what felt like a million passes. Thankfully it was only 50mm long.

OK to put it into terms I'd normally use then ;-) Blimey thats a mess, I wonder why it went like that ......

Back in January I was too busy dealing with HMRC to worry about my LR .. but thats dealt with now. So retired now and the 90 only needs driving really. The back door needs painting again as the powder coating on the spare wheel carrier came off and made a mess of the door but I did a pre MOT earlier and its spot on. So little to do I actually waxed and buffed it!