Eightpot

I need to update the wiper arms on my 2 door Rangie as it's difficult to get blades with the right fittings these days. Are discovery wiper arms fitted on a push fit splined spindle or do they use a nut to retain on the wiper spindle?? cheers

Pretty easy to rig up a warning light on these - on the drivers side of the gearbox, there is a 4cm round aluminium or tin switch with a wire coming out of the centre - use this as the earth for your light and bobs your uncle.

Oh, and to help you along a bit, the black knob has three ports underneath it with tubes coming off. The one closest to the dash pointing forward goes to the engine manifold or port on the carb which is where it gets the vacuum from. The rear two ports go to the diff lock plunger/actuator which is low down on the driver side of the gearbox, a little round mini servo type thing and these pipes either pull or push the diaphragm inside it, which slides the diff lock one way or t'other if you can remove one of the pipes from the switch, with the engine running you should be able to feel the vacuum if you put your finger over the port if it's working ok. The switch itself is dead simple inside - the knob is connected to a sliding piece of rubber which moves up or down over one of the two rear ports, so the other gets the vaccum.

By the way, it's worth checking that the difflock switch is connected up and working. The vacuum holds the diff lock plunger either in or out if you know what I mean - and if it's not connected up the plunger can move and go into diff lock without your knowledge. probably the easiest way to confirm is if the guy who converted it put the diff lock warning light on your dash. If you have one and the light goes on and off when you operate the button, then no probs. if you don't have one or it doesn't light up or go off, then you need to check that the tubes are not damaged and are connected up. If it's left in diff lock for any reason and you drive it on the road, you will destroy the box.

Early rangies with the four speed box have this - the diff lock works in the same way as on other boxes, but rather than using a big lever to engage it, you pull that knob up which is connected to a vacuum pipe, which in turn connects to a vacuum operated plunger on the side of the transfer box which then engages diff lock.

I watched the entire series of American Hot rod, and came to the conclusion I needed more than a grinder, hammer and vice I recently bought a Sealey electric DA sander - way better and faster than orbital sanders for prepping a car, and then bought a big Compair compressor. Can't believe I've put off buying a compressor all these years, been mega useful and it's already paid for itself in the first week as I've been able to spray my car rather than farm it out. I want a folder next, and then a big swage roller for making panels and repair pieces, and then a hydraulic press.

If you had true full time 4wd, you would go through tyres very quickly as they would scrub badly on corners as the outside ones need to travel faster - same with front and rear axles. There is a centre diff between front and rear axles in the transfer gearbox which works on the same principle as a diff in an axle - your lever/switch locks this so if you are on a loose surface you get drive to both axles, rather than the centre diff slipping and only one axle getting drive, which with the axle diffs slipping as well would leave you with 1WD. Only use diff lock on a loose surface, you will damage your gearbox if you run with it locked on tar - read up on transmission wind-up If you've got rangie axles, just wondering if you might have an LT95 gearbox as you say switch rather than lever?? Do you have a little round black knob that you have to pull up (fnar fnar) ??

I'd try swapping springs from one side to another , less than an hours work as already said. If you still have a lean, you can fit spring isolators to the lowest side - a 10mm thick packer which you can fit under or over the spring, or both if you want 20mm raise. Part number ANR2938, about £6 each from paddocks.

my thoughts too, surely you'd have to run the engine for ages to get a decent water temperature? hence my nearly silly sounding idea of a putting a kettle of hot water in the water tank We did just that when overlanding, but used a separate small 20 litre water jerrycan for the shower feed so we didn't end up with hot water coming out of the sink tap, and one boiled kettle got it to just the right temperature. Might not be enough water for inside a cosy big camper though - we had to have our showers standing butt naked at the back of the Land Rover, so they tended to be fairly swift (actually I did pack a shower curtain, just never told the missus )

If any of the bits you bought were in a blue box from a company that rhymes with ****fart, don't trust they are working just because they are new. I've had a couple of duff thermostats straight out of the box before now, also be sure that the engine is actually hot rather than senders and guages just indicating it's hot. If you've put a bigger intercooler on and have adjusted the fueling up, you will be creating more heat, so if you drive it like an Italian taxi driver it will be getting hotter than normal anyway. Water pump ok? If you open the cap on the rad when the engines nearly up to temperature (but not hot!) you should see the water circulating.

One daft thing to check is the wire feeding the temp sender on the thermostat housing. Over time the insulation can get chaffed on the engine block, shorting it out and giving a full temp reading on the gauge. It happened on a mate of mines TDi, but only at fast road speed, when the extra airflow through the engine bay pushed the wire down just that little bit till it made contact and gave a hot reading. Long shot, but worth checking.

There are drain plugs on them, and I eyed them up long and hard before deciding well and truly against even going near them, knowing full well that the second a plug comes clear from the tank it will shoot across the workshop leaving 40 litres draining into a 20 litre can...which would then topple over leaving me flapping round like an oily seabird trying to plug the hole.. I'm sure I heard a really simple technique for getting the fluid going without taking a mouthfull, but can't remember what it is - would it work holding the tube vertically above the tank level and sucking upwards till fluid is nearly at the end, then applying a finger over the end before dropping it down into a jerry can??

Well I picked up three 90's from Withams last week, and they all came with brimmed full tanks of diesel! So at least I know I'm going to Newbury Anyone got any good syphoning techniques though, I ended up with the first two attempts coming out of my nose :x

We just get it so wrong in this country - (rant building up) Had to get some fuel tonight so I could head off up the motorway to pick up some ebay tat I'd won - queue in to the petrol station was massive and getting bigger. Not only were people brimming their tanks rather than putting the normal 20 quid in, but extra plastic fuel cans were coming out of the boots of peoples cars, then the lady in front of me in a big pick up truck brimmed her tank, then pulled back a tarp to reveal an extra five large fuel barrels, which she then slowly filled. She must have taken about 300 litres. Now all this is supposed to be in case of a drivers strike, when what we all SHOULD be doing is doing a full on self imposed travel ban or day of NOT buying fuel in protest at the ridiculous levels of duty on fuel, instead of giving the government a mahooosive tax windfall! Who says the minister got it wrong by saying we should stock up - he's probably just earned a bonus.

"Do not forget that I only delivery the bodys. Pick up will do not reduce the price of this cost, and only with agree of the both we can change the price of mail costs. " Well that's cleared that up then.

I have a big Teng Mecca Rosso kit which I've been abusing for 21 years - I finaly managed to strip a couple of teeth on the 3/8 ratchet by smashing it with a lump hammer trying to get a seized solid nut undone, other than that everything is still as I bought it. You can buy a ratchet repair kit as well, so I'm not to bothered about that. They are pricey but damn fine kit. i've also got a Britool imperial kit handed down from my grandfather with has a half inch drive ratchet that I use for really beefy stuff and that's been indestructable so far - the sockets have taken breaker bars with scaffold extensions to shift ancient rust welded monster nuts, and all thats bent has been the scaffold. Haven't tried the halfords pro stuff, had one of the small cheapy 6-13mm sockets sets and the ratchet sprang apart after a week, but it was only a cheap set.

was chatting to a mate of mine who works in a busy insurance bodyshop and he says the guys there apply the hi-build primer with a roller - might take a little more flatting back but saves on time setting up a spray gun.

If you're concerned then give the police station local to where you bought the transfer box a call. That bit of info might just help, or they may not be the slightest bit bothered and you can stick the box on with a clear conscience. Not much else you can do unless you have the rest of the serial number and can match it to a stolen and unrecovered car.

The salt mines of Saltzburg are worth while going to if you're going to Werfen - I was dragged there with a gob on me, but they were actually worth seeing - huge underground mines with an underground lake, and you go on a gay boat ride through lit up crystal caverns. And you get a mini bottle of salt at the end. Seriously though, it was quite interesting. We dropped in to Baden-Baden en route to Stuttgart - there's an awesome Spa there which has got all the usual saunas, jacuzzis etc, and a huge steamy heated pool that goes outside and has a monster wave machine that shoots you round Was dragged into that place as well, but had to be dragged back out! Bled in Slovenia is on your way, a really cool town by a big lake framed by snow capped mountains, good campsite there too. great driving roads and views through the mountains. The coast road all the way south through Croatia is awesome, it hugs the coast all the way down and the views over the cliffs and beaches across the med are stunning. Loads of good cheap camping too, usually next to the beach. If you want to make a bit of ground you can get on to the main autoroute that runs parallel - you can then hook into Bosnia in the south near Mostar and work back up through Bosnia- though it's worth going a bit further on to get to Dubrovnik, really picturesque walled city with loads of good cafe bars pizzerias and shops, great place for getting on the all-dayer

I might be reading you wrong here, but were you planning on doing all the initial flatting with 80 grit? If so it's too savage really and would leave ahell of a lot of marks, but ok to clean out dents and then initial filler shaping. 240 is good for flatting the surface of existing good paint. You don't need to remove a lot, just make it matt. When you do a dent, go back to bare metal so the filler is only applied to metal - if you filler over paint the paint can sink in to it over time leaving an obvious ring. you only need to etch prime any bare alluminium - don't flat the etch primer back, put the filler primer straight on it. Do as many dents as you can, they really show up once the new paint is on and you'll wish you'd spent the extra hour...

I did my last one with a roller and the finish was very good - finish was improved if the paint was thinned well otherwise it got orangepeeley. Didn't get any marks or lines from the roller though. I used foam rollers which tended to disolve after a few minutes, so will use a gloss roller next time. Finish is improved if you do all the panel edges, gaps between wing panels, round screen frame etc with a brush or sponge first, then do the rollering. Can't beat a spray finish on a well masked up car though, it does look much neater. Had to do a touch up on a repair area on a wing yesterday and used a kitchen sponge with well thinned paint and just wiped over the area - came up really well.

When I wanted hot water out of the tap in my camper, I simply poured a kettle of hot water in the water tank or just into the sink. Simples.

Maybe there's some additional science to this, but I would guess it doesn't matter. The aim is to take heat out of the water (and most importantly dissipate it from the block), so does it matter if you remove 20 deg from 90 deg or 20 deg from 60 deg - end effect would be the same in water by the time it's moved round the system a little.

yep, Cat C's need a VIC check before you can return it to the road - only needed on a Cat C though, Cat D doesn't need a check as this category only covers cosmetic damage or cars passed through the insurance system for purely financial reasons