GW8IZR

Just a point, these small turbo lumps are not incredibly reliable, they dont last the kind of milages tht I expect before going bang in a big way. When picking a second hand engine to consider for transplant some are pretty shot at just a few years old( I accept that opinions on how important that is may vary )

I was going to take a picture of mine but found this on the web which should help..

Well frtom my very limited experience they are hard to hate .. anyway hope it works out :-) <edit> My apologies, I thought it was the RR you were testing. My wife hasn't been keen on any of the 110/90 that I've run here over the years although she doesn't mind the current 90 with good standard seat, raising them up and moving them back made it more pleasant for both of us, she is quite small and I'm fairly tall so position seems to help.

You know that is the end of it don't you? Once you have ridden in it the heart takes over and its only a matter of time :-)

In my view it depends what your asking, if your talking setting about a bit of metal with a battery drill, by hand you can centre punch, then angle the punch and hit it again, a few goes and you can have a mark that a small pilot drill at the right angle wont slip out of.. work up in sizes a bit at a time till the hole is big enough for the final drill size and go for it. On the other hand if I can, I put the job in the mill, use a milling cutter to create a flat at the right angle then swap the cutter for a drill.. treat as a normal hole. Proper machinists will have other and probably better ways.

Magazines do tend to target people starting off in the hobby, after all they are the easiest to get to part with their money for this weeks 'must have' accessory. Back in the day I enjoyed IOR and some of the tales of epic dare do enthused me to have a go myself. Well, back then I was a beginner so maybe I was easier to satisfy (see above) but I do think the writing was a bit more down to earth, truthful and honest. I recall an article about Goretex jackets where the half wit sprayed it with WD40 to improve its performance... BUT in the next month they retracted the comment and acknowledged that it was stupid - an honest mistake. Maybe its harder today, lets face it if I wanted to read more about Daan's truck I can read about it here in real time and actually interact with him .. that's a hard act for a magazine to beat. I no longer buy the mags +mainly+ because I see through the blatant lies bigging up stuff like Britpart.

Yes I think we are at cross purpose here, the original pic was discussing using a battery drill to clear threads and I've been doing that as long as there have been battery drills, never broke a tap once.. now I possibly confused the situation by saying I often start a thread in the mill. My mill isn't advanced enough to tap under power but starting threads and same in my little lathe, thats a different thing.

I use a drill often for stuff like that, I just gently nip tjhe chuck by hand and it slips if it grabs, I start threads the same way in the milling machine to keep them straight, turn it off and drop it in the hole then cut by hand.. The only time I break taps is doing small holes in copper by hand, I hate taping copper....

If they look to be good condition and original I'd keep them, if they look stuffed or they look to have been swapped for pattern parts I'd swap them ..

Yep back then just a workshop in a farm building, back in '95 or so he wanted a 90 to prototype an external cage, the one he used was a bit of a shed. When I dropped it off with the owner Drew looked it up and down and just quietly said.. what we call a well used example :-)

That is sad news indeed, I only met him a couple of times but he seemed a straight forward guy with a dry sense of humour.

Yes, a hacksaw cut in a bolt does work very well, I have a couple of bits of stud with Dremel slots in them and turned down to fit in a battery drill, make excellent thread cleaners at circa zero cost.

warning geek alert! :-) in a previous life I had to do wind loading calculations for antennas, one thing that always took engineers by surprise were mesh dishes. In simplistic terms, above a certain air speed meshes behave like a solid sheet and in general the smaller the hole the lower the speed. The ones you see on the bay have quite small holes and even at LR road speeds they will not behave how you might expect. As it happens just this week I stuck a bilge blower in my heater and before I put the screws back in, the cheapo plastic ram cover that was on my heater was actually being sucked onto the vent - a serious restriction. ( I just put a few 25mm holes in it till my proper vent cover arrives ) HTH

And another year goes by.

Hi Mike, apologies - Mordant solution, at work we always called it T-wash. A water based blue liquid intended to prepare new galvanised metal for paint. Applied by brush and excess washed off after the surface turns almost black. You should paint the surface within ( from memory ) 36H to prevent contamination and oxidisation reducing paint adhesion. We used this when painting tower steel / antenna brackets etc when 'environmental concerns' meant the steelwork needed to blend in with the surroundings. It was the only way we found to reliably get paint to stick when exposed to life and weather on a tower. Lots of paint suppliers sell it, I think my local car paint supplier sold me 25l for about 10 UKP and I still have a lot left for 'future projects' Regards Paul

I once made the mistake of leaving my old collie under the fly screen of my tent ( he liked fox poo ) I could hear him start to cry about an hour in to the night and when I investigated we both had to swim in the loch to get rid of the worst and spent the next few hours cleaning him up and treating the bites. Next night smelly or not he was in the tent with me.

I suppose it depends how far its stuck out Ralph, I pushed mine up to the first flange and stuck an M4 nut and bolt through the top to secure it. Hot glue then round the flange to 'stick' it in place. That left maybe 3/4 inch sticking out at the bottom. That definitely stopped the original fan rotating. I just marked it round with a pen and trimmed it off. Anyway if yours isn't touching I'd prob leave it alone :-) I would on mine as the water bottle, aux fuse box, headlamp relay box, relay panel for the cooling fan, brackets for the air box and HF antenna base all have to come off before I can get to the duct!

So I fitted the bilge blower today, access was a bit more complex as there are a few bits in the way on mine but straightforward job. Its worth making sure you trim the bilge blower outlet so there is only a 6.35mm or (1/4' in real money) protrusion or it fouls the existing fan impeller - I had to take mine out and trim it first time round. It was interesting to note that on full bore the silly after market scoop / duct thing is now being sucked onto the inlet and was noticeably restricting the air flow. Stupid idea, it was on the wing when I got it but a standard grill is to be fitted when I next order some bits. Wired across the existing motor so the speed control works as expected I don't think we need worry about the additional current. Both motors on slow is 1.75A and both motors on fast 6.2A so well within the capabilities of the switches and wires. I did put an in line waterproof fuse for the new blower so I can turn it off if needed. Makes a bit more noise on full speed but insignificant in the 90. Is it worth it? well, I reckon my original motor is in good order and the heater was always ok anyway but a bit more demist is helpful. Here both blowers individually generate about the same amount of air, they both draw the same current so efficiency seems about the same as well. There is a noticeable increase in demist when both are running and tonight I was using 'slow' most of the time whereas before I would have been on 'fast' so it meets my requirement of enabling a bit more demist when needed.

For a few years after galvanising the surface changes to provide its protective coating, during that time it makes carbonates and oxides that paint doesn't adhere to. T-wash is very cheap and will give predictable results allowing your paint to stick as you would want. The success or not of etch primer will depend how soon after galvanising and how far into the weathering process it is, results will be unpredictable. HTH

On slow you will have an extra 1/2 to 1 A through the resistor and it may well fail in the future, but if it does it will still run on fast and a bigger resistor will solve that as and when you need to do it. Otherwise.. yep .. that will be OK

Quick test run on the bench, I need to collect all the bits that blew round the workshop. I measured the surge current and its not a concern to me, I reckon the existing wiring and switch will be ok in my truck.

Interesting comment that, I'm quite tall and found raising the seats made a massive difference - I always had bad knees when driving with the seat in th original position - 'er indoors is tiny and apart from getting in and out finds the higher position much more comfortable. One unexpected thing, my spare is on the bonnet and for some reason now I'm sat higher up I find it more obtrusive, I _think_ its because instead of just seeing the tread I now see more of the sidewall as well which makes it seem bigger.

Is it just the front thats too high? (and from the photo maybe too far forward) would it be possible to lift the back and move the whole thing further back? That might give you extra room under the wheel without major re construction. I put standard seats in mine but raised them as I'm quite tall, more comfortable but I nearly need a step ladder now :-)

Hi Coventrykid and welcome to the forum. I also recently took early retirement and its an interesting transition in life. The new truck looks very nice and there are a couple of things that are in my opinion essential to keeping it that way. Security and corrosion prevention/cure. After that its a kind of blank canvas, have fun :-)

I always like build write ups, they are always good to read, countless things you pick up and think you can use or adapt... so yes please. This was the hose I meant? wondering what it was for?