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Eightpot

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Posts posted by Eightpot

  1. Old V8s can run rough for many reasons, sometimes several at once.  Some things off the top of my head - faulty fuel pump or pump power supply. Fuel evaporation due to poor return flow to tank. Bad plugs/ wrong temp.  Dirt in carbs. Air leak on manifold. Dirt/object in tank blocking pick up pipe. Stuck advance mechanism on dizzy, bad module. 

    The list goes on, but thorough testing of each element of air/fuel/ignition, particularly when it won't start is the key. Is fuel getting to carbs, is fuel getting into cylinders, is power getting to plugs, are plugs sparking, is mixture good, is compression good. Find the area at fault & work backwards.

  2. I wrote to DVLA asking what the process was for reporting these invented identities - there isn't one and they didn't much care. Just advised me to tell the police if I see one. Police won't care much either unless it's got no insurance and a body in the boot,  so if you want to save a few bob on tax just screw some old number plates on 😕 

     

  3. I was struggling to get my trade parts from Bearmach for the last couple of years - the quality of parts declined massively as well to the point I had to stop using them - a lot of Britpart stuff is superior.  I have only just narrowly avoided a destroyed engine after a brand new bearmach coolant overflow Y piece on my 300tdi split and lost a lot of water, unfortunately as I was going up a mountain in the pyreneese and it boiled dry. 

    It's a pity as thier stuff used to be decent and I liked dealing with thier trade tream - it seems sourcing thier stuff from china became an issue with covid and the subsequent global supply & shipping problems.

  4. Thermostats along with many other parts are rubbish these days  - I no longer use anything but waxstat in the workshop and even then they can be faulty out of the box. Think I went through four new stats before getting a good one in my own 200tdi.   

     

    • Like 1
  5. Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs, I don't know if you have a pressure guage or are relying on a blinking oil pressure warning lamp?

    My old safari truck in africa started flashing the oil pressure warning lamp very convincingly for a while which had me thinking the worst - turned out to be a bad sender thankfully - always nice when its the cheap fix 🙂

  6. Virtually all bodyshop paint suppliers will be able to take a scan of your bodywork and mix something up. You will find your local one with a google search. The difficulty with matching old paint is deciding to replicate the weathered & oxidised current colour or polish it up to bring it back closer to the shade it went on as - the new paint will stay bright far longer than the old panels which will revert to thier dull state. 

  7. Terms & conditions seem to vary depending on which agent you use, ebay, parcel2go etc, as they seem to make thier own standardised rules but if you check directly with the couriers most will accept a tyre if its within weight or dimension parameters as long as they are wrapped & labelled.  I've sent a few recently, I think using Parcelforce and TNT.  

  8. After one of the bearmach sourced inner tubes blew its guts out on the motorway at the weekend, I think I might find some heavier duty ones for the Rangie - anyone know of a good supplier?

    The only place I can find michelins online are £43 each 😲  at which price I'm better off sourcing tubed rims..

  9. as an aside, I'm a ludite and techophobe for the most part, haven't owned a modern car for 15 years, but have to hand it to my wifes 14 year old 'modern' Saab  though which does a 170 mile commute three times a week for several years, refuses to break down, I've changed the oil twice which is the extent of the spanner jobs I've had to do, its quick, comfortable and refuses to do less than 45mpg and yet to grow a spot of rust.  Still on it's original shocks & exhaust at 160,000 miles while my Land rovers sit there like screaming baby birds waiting for feeding & fixing daily.

    I'm trying to clean up the aerodynamics on my Range Rover ambulance at the moment while preppng it for another big trip, as every mpg counts over a few thousand miles, and while trying to figure out if a smooth steering guard will help airflow under the axle to any extent or if I should stop buying shiny things,  came across this interesting technical paper written by a guy from LR and a professor on SUV aerodynamics - it confirms the defender is equivalent aerodynamicaly to a Spanish galleon compared to other models, took some useful tips to clean up the flow and reduce high pressure areas.

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330412255_Improving_SUV_Aerodynamics

     

    • Like 1
  10. That's just badly fitted - They're an easy screen to fit if you do it right using the string method, pulling from inside the car using plenty of lube and gentle pressure and thumps from outside. 

    As there's no filler strip to pack the seal out  its a tighter seal than most and its important to do the thumps, lube and manipulation constantly or the glass doesn't sit fully in the seal groove nor seal sit in the frame, and when you get to the last corner there's not enough gap and you either have to give up and start again or force the seal till either it or the glass gives way. 

    I've never found issues with any brand of seal or glass, in fact my preference over the years has been britpart seals which always go in very nicely  so should be no excuse with a genuine one. 

  11. 4 hours ago, Snagger said:

    I thought XCLs and XZLs sound more like TIE Fighters, but having a listen, I think they are very like the Cloud City Pod Cars in Empire Strikes Back. 

    Think you're right, they're more like a tie fighter - still remember driving to Libya in a soft top 90 on G90s and that howl drove me nuts! 

     

    • Haha 1
  12. G90s aren't brilliant in mud, but then aside from mucking about on Salisbury plain, and possibly a bit of gloop in the Falklands, the military has needed good sand & gravel tyres for the last three decades, G90s are very good on that in their defence.  They air down very well and that tread pattern grips into stone or rocky ground where other tyres can tend to slide over the top.  And if you go fast enough they sound like a star wars x-fighter 😄

  13. 5 hours ago, Maverik said:

    I've been mulling this over - and reading a few other threads with 200tdi skimming belts - non have reported a sqeeling noise, the belt just usually wears its merry self away...

    Now I put it a new belt and new tensioner (last time) and the identical squeeling has started again -  a small alarm bell has been rung, I think I need to pay more attention to the source of the noise and maybe not just assume its from the belt/tensioner interaction...

    The belt in my 200tdi snapped recently after starting to squeal on a 40 mile drive. The belt was fitted two years previously and had done two trips to the south of France.  Failure was down to slight misalignment of the tensioner, and as I mentioned previously, was down to the tensioner backplate not being sat flat on the case when the nut was tightened down. Had similar happen with vehicles at work over the years, 200 & 300tdi , doesnt take much to walk the belt off. The way the dust is collecting in your cover I'd be surprised if it were anything other than an out of square tensioner. 

    • Like 3
  14. I guess it uses the later m12x1.25 thread sender from discovery V8 rather than the older 5/8 UNF thread sender from older v8 defenders.  The resistance range may be different so the newer gauge may not work with older sender types. 

    As already mentioned, probably better to get a matched VDO sender/gauge if you can't find something, or use an alternative sender with the same resistance range and modify the thread/use an adaptor. 

  15. 11 minutes ago, cackshifter said:

    She can't have hooned it about much if it had the original tyres at 36k; my 1275GT used to do a front set every 7000.

    Apparantly not - they weren't in bad nick either considering - still held air.  The spare didn't look like it had been used.  I got a lot more out of my old 1275 tyres, though they were all bald and three different sizes 😆 

    I used to have a mini van which used to go through headlamps at an alarming rate - I fitted a one piece fibreglass flip front by simply chopping the front of the car off and bolting two door hinges to the front subframe.  It was secured at the A panel with a pair of cheap overcentre latches which always came undone if I braked hard at the lights  🤡

  16. I wouldn't think it abnormal to get some cracking at that age, and I guess with specialist tyres like these with tall tread blocks there's always going to be some compromises - the cracking might be prevented if they used a softer compound, but then wear would accelerate and they'd be squirmy going round corners.  At least the UV isn't so strong where you are, I have to keep the tyres on my african Defender covered up with thick uv resistant tarpaulin which turns to dust and has to be replaced every 6 months! 

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