Vanny

I've got three Dremels at work, and the missus has a hand held jobbie for jewelery making. I use mine more for cutting plastics and finishing rapid prototype parts, she uses hers for polishing and drilling. We tend to have the same complaints, you have to take your time or you burn through the accessories, and you end up with a better finish. You'll find an initial glut of spending on things like the larger collets, and variety boxes. These days she tends to buy the cheapo kits from ALDI when they come around and finds identical performance to the Dremel ones, but when in doubt we both revert to B&Q's pretty extensive range of genuine Dremel. I've bought two Dremels direct from a web based company i can't remember the name of, but the Dremel its self worked out at about £20. Cheaper than repairing a broken one annoyingly. Also, she tend to get miniature drill bits from APTC (Axminster Power Tool Center) in Nuneaton, probably because thats where i send her!

At long bloody last, it's about time. Just don't go a trash it on your first day out! Now you only have the 109, Merc, kit car and Mini to complete, should have them done just as you retire

Well its a UK vehicle from new, the company that own it bought it new from a local UK dealer in 2006. I appreciate this doesn't automatically mean it's a UK model mind. It is RHD though so i guess it could only be a Japanese spec model? I don't know much about the Discovery to be honest. Makes a great sound though! On the economy front, it has cost about 20quid to do around 60 miles (1.04ppl at the pump) so thats around 14mpg. Slightly worrying as the traffic i've been sat in has been a fairly consistent 50 to 60 on the motorway, i'd have expected a bit more miles per pence. But it's gone back now, fun while it lasted, and a new found respect for the Disco!

Hi all, I've been enjoying the relative pleasure of a V8 Supercharge Disco 3 for the last two day (loaner while my car is repaired) and i'm wondering if anyone has an idea of the fuel economy? I've only done 50miles so far so can't guage it myself. I've tried searching but found nothing, i'd be happy for pointers in the right direction if the information is already out there. Cheers

I use PTC's Pro Engineer Wildfire 4 and once you get used to where tools are hidden (very different layout to AutoCAD/Desk IMHO) then it is an incredibly useful program and quite easy to see when your going wrong. My understanding is that CoCreate is a cut down of ProE so should be good!

Is there anysort of generic system which can use any given hardware. I have a peak systems PCAN USB interface which works great with the JAG/LR hardware i deal with at work, but the software we have is very specific to individual pieces of car, ie i can't use the software to read engine fault codes. Looking at the website it looks like the Launch X431 is pretty much buried in hardware, and not generic.

You can still work on electrics 'DIY' under part-p, you simply have to get the work validated afterwards. Major things can require various amounts of paper work, but it is still cheaper in the long run to do it yourself (assuming your competent that is). Also to do the part P exams is a one off fee of around £50, so long as you can manage your own learning and get the right teaching materials (ebay £4), then even the most occasional of DIYers could get them selves qualified to sign off on basic changes.

10mm 3 core feed to the garage also helps, can't half pack a bit of juice down one of them! 6mm twin and earth is not for winners

Cheers Bowie, will give it a go and see what happens. I haven't made an actual PCB for a good ten years, typically it seems quicker to just knock stuff up on vero board, but its rare these days that i make any circuits. Probably can' t do it at all anymore

Mobile phone batteries you can lob in a microwave and nuke for a couple of seconds to recharge. But i hold no responcibility if you blow the bugger up!

Have you tried PoleVolt rather than VWP? I stopped ordering through VWP when I went to put a £350+ order in and the guy on the phone wasn't interested/couldn't be bothered to take the order. PoleVolt on the other hand is a guy in a shed setup, really friendly, and usually you can an/change the order until the early evening when the parcel man comes to collect. Prices are about the same, but the help and advice is much better. Bowie69, what program did you use to draw the wiring schematic? I tend to use PSpice but it doesn't half take some effort, i wondered if there was an easier to use cheap/free solution?

If its a standard plumbing size could you use a couple of compression fit joints and flexible braided pipe length (similar to that fitted to some sink taps)?

my feeling is that the setup should be lever left for loose, lever right for tight (lefty loosey, righty righty), since that is the was most fittings do up. My tool box has a mix of US ratchets (that use this system) and UK ratchets that are the opposite way round. These days i find there is such a mix that i just check as i go unless i know for definite which way the ratchet is setup.

I've had a Petzl Tikka for camping but never thought to use it on the car, then two months ago the other half bought me a similar thing from AlpKit and now i never have it off my head. Better than the Tikka in many ways (especially the cost) but most importantly it has two power output settings, i use the low one a lot when very very close to something! Takes AA batteries too. You can get 'valetting' lights which can be fed from the mains of run on a 12v battery, they sell them in Costco and machine mart and have two 12v trip tubes in them. I find they provide loads of light and are a LOT more robust than they look. Pretty much filled one with LHM (suspension oil) withou realising, wiped it down, left it to drip for a while, and it work just fine!

Hi Folks I've recently moved to Coventry after many many years living in Liverpool, bit of a culture shock. I've got myself a job working for a supplier of JLR which means spending lots of time playing with prototype Land rovers and Jaguars all over the place (Gaydon, Mira, Canada) so VERY much worth the move. But i dont know anyone in Coventry and more importantly i dn't know any useful places! So what do you know, any good places for building supplies, metal working supplies and metal stockists, anywhere good for a curry and or a pint. Any good competitions that go on in the area? Any contacts for marshalling off road motorsport? Any good clubs and or meets? And anything else that you think might be useful to know? I'm likely to be without the landy for some time as i wont have space to put it or indeed funds to run it so its staying in Liverpool for the time being. But i have bought a house with a reasonable garage! Whoop! Its my first house, in Potters Green (CV2 2G ) On which topic any good builders that you can recommend would be handy. Cheers Vanny

I've got a whole hodge podge of naff tool boxes mostly nonbranded. I've got a cab and top box from Homak and its the absolute base version and it shows, it doesn't like being dragged accross the garage and the top box deforms when loaded, in comparison my dad as a very expensive homak roll cab with bb sliders and came with draw lining and a handle and huge castors and is ndestructable and runs really well. I've used both the red and black halfords tool boxes, the red ones nt like being over loaded while the black ones will take anything you throw at it. My limited knowledge says that you get what you pay for with roll cabs and top boxes and there are rarely good deals to be found. See if you can find someone with a halfords trade card and see what the price difference is, theres upto 50% discount on tools on trade so you might be surprised!

hmmm i wonder if i should be weighing in the 4x 6ft farm rollers that are buried in a hedge where i work. Though i doubt the BX would cope with the weight and the landy isnt road legal

I picked up this today; £25 delivered from a guy getting rid of all his welding gear (and there sounds like there is a lot). I can have it exchanged for free without any problems either. I'm also taking delivery of a small portable bottle this weekend in lieu of payment for some work i've been doing, ts an old CO pub gas bottle thats had the filler changed and refilled with COOGAR. Need to get a longer pipe from the welder to the bottle now though.

must be a river or drainage ditch near by? Who do they always have trolleys in!

Steel pipe rots fast on a car, see if you can get Cupro Nickel pipe instead. Used in most aircraft hydraulics it lasts for ever and comes in a huge range of sizes. Its also very bendy by hand and doesnt crush. It's a pretty common thing to see it being used for brake pipes, but you can get it much bigger wall and bore sizes.

When still working the trade i tended to go round with 4 Dewalt cordless drills, 2 XRP, a basic driver and a 24v hammer drill, and a HUGE bag of batteries. Batteries wouldn't last 4 months, but then there where 2 of us using the drills and pretty much continuous. Repairs are very expensive, even on trade contract with Northern Power Tools, the parts where the killer. One big issue i have with big motored dewalts (has heppened on a grinder and a radial arm saw) change the brushes regular, regardless of what they look like, the brushes have a form for suddenly vanishing once they get ot a certain age, and the motors don't like the brush carrier being slammed intot hem. Cue a new motor! Best and most comfortable drill i've used is an 18v Ryobi cordless, big, but well balanced. Now i'm not using company tools i'm buying a LOT from B+Q, with amazing results, but all have been corded so far. I guess thats a bonus of Dewalt cordless, the batteries are VERY easy to come by. I've got 5 grinders (no really) the best one i've got i've had for 6 years and was bought in Aldi, on its second set of brushes (which came with it) and its been dropped from serious heights without a problem (normally of steel sheet roofs). Still going strong, and cost a whopping £15. Just bought its replacement for when it dies, again from aldi, £12 and this one included goggles! Also got one from Lidl (heavy, long, ugly, noisey, very square), a low end B&D one (orange, comfy, seems damped), a cheapo one from Makro (a good 10+ years old on original brushes (go figure) heavy but metal cased) and another cheap BIG one. The last Dewalt one i used went poof when i turned it on (brushes failed) and a new one was bought for £80. Oh, i like power tools Especially whirry choppy ones!

Mike, i'll have some time available to you next week (yes i know, wiring, thats on my list) so can ferry your bike around (and empty my boot of your carp) infact, doing a northwich/trailer/wiring/bike sort of run might work. Also, love the fact that you know where the hospital is but dont realise it's surrounded by Greasby (where Nige lives), you damn muppet! Do SRT just do bikes? And do the do Enduro's? Seems like a familiar name to me. . .

Both of my grandparents have 'large' off roading mobility scooters, there not bad but basically they are standard scooters with big pneumatic wheels and uprated motors, they happily drive along the beach and car crawl up 6" kerbs without too much hassle. A point to make, if your thinking of off roading them, you need GOOD hill decent control, my granny recently ended up in hospital after laying her self all over a main road because she lost control of the scooter going down hill on the pavement! I might add she is neither light nor agile which will have played a huge part in the accident! Ideally makign the thing wider would be idea but you have to look at a huge number of size related issues. Most if not all scooters are designed to fit through a normal open door way (which is around 700mm wide), they are designed to be light enough for your average person to pick up (say 40kg ish between two people) and they have to be compact enough to go in a car/van (how else do you get to the off road walkways). You'll also have a huge issue with access, most coastal walk ways that i can think off have gates at either end to stop animals getting in/out (maybe i've spent to long in wales?). Oh, go have a look in the NEW highway code and there are now rules about the use of mobility scooters on and off road (mostly speed limits etc) but i think these relate to new additions to the road traffic act (the highway code links to all relevant sections of the RTA). Sounds like a birlliant project though!