Night Train

Not motoring related but given that I am usually overly H&S aware I was rather peeved to fall through the floor I was rebuilding at a friend's house yesterday. I am now sporting a dinner plate sized bruise and graze on the back of my right thigh where all my weight landed on the edge of a joist and a huge bump on my head where I smacked my head on the corner of the chimney breast on the way down. Still undecided if I should visit A&E to have my head examined as the pain isn't where I hit it.

Excellent! Do you have photos that you can post? It would be good to see a thread on your conversion.

I'd love to see how you did it too. I had to scratch build a 3 speed transfer box for mine.

Isn't it now a legal requirement to ensure your pets have sufficent excercise and play to keep them physically and mentally fit and healthy? So the cute puddy cats have a new toy to play with. Sweet!

Read T&C carefully and requested a pair of 2800 Overspecs.

Nasty accident. Thank you for sharing it and looking at the risk assessment too. It should serve as a good warning and reminder to all of us who use any potentially dangerous equipment. As a teacher I am forever going through H&S with my students in the workshop and the machine shop. I am fortunate to have not suffered any accidents like this, come close once or twice though. I put this down to seeing too many of them as a kid. I once saw a carpenter cut his thumb off with a big circular saw, right in front of me, when I was about 8 years old. Another time going to school I stopped to watch a builder with a petrol disc cutter cutting a paving slab. His mate was standing on the corners of the slab, in front, to hold it steady. The disc caught and shot the whole cutter forwards and upwards. I didn't hang around to see what a man looks like split from the crotch upwards but I don't think he lived. When I am working, or teaching, I am forever checking for what might go wrong, where the blade (or other dangerous bits) might go, what happens if.... to the point that sometimes I just get a different tool or ask someone with more experience to do it for me and show me how to do it correctly. Or I revert back to non powered hand tools.

Nice! There is a typo though. 'Spon on filter'

The way I read it I saw it as a way to see if a learner can make decisions while driving. A change from the old 'keep following the road ahead until instructed otherwise' routine. It would make the learner examine the road ahead and decide if and how to take a junction in advance. So driving towards a give way the learner will need to recognise it, establish a safe road position and then execute the manuvoever properly and safely, even if it is not the direction previously given. Obviously it would penalise a learner who turns the wrong way onto a one way road or heads down a motorway slip road or a no through road. It would also show up hesitancy and indecision while still driving towards a junction. A young lad I teach recently had to pick up his first car and drive it home. He was supposed to follow his friend home but got himself confused on the motorway and missed his junction. He eventually left the motorway, saw a bus and followed it home, stopping at each stop, as he couldn't follow road signs or make the decisions where to go on his own. So is it still ok with a LGV to change up a gear while cornering so long as the steering isn't turned at the same time?

I've not worked with one though I have thought about getting one to play with. For my big 305mm woodwork compound sliding mitre saw what I found was that the table is located on a detent for the commonly used angles. However, the detent is severly lacking in accuracy. The fence on the other hand is located on over size holes and can be adjusted to sit square to the blade when the table is at 90deg This is fine and I generally square the blade and fence prior to work by checking against a square and test cutting some scrap. The problem comes when I then need to swing round to, say, 45deg and it isn't.

Good, old fashioned, engineering solutions. I want to do something similar on my tractor but I also have a mini electrohydraulic crane arm I could use.

When I did my HGV it was ok to proceed towards, and drive through, a red light if by not doing so the junction would be obstructed due to the size of the vehicle. Sometimes examiners are also wrong. I 'sacked' my HGV examiner for requesting I carried out an illegal manoeuvre. He failed me but DVLA suspended him for retraining and refunded me my test fee. I guess in the case of the OP it could be seen as failing to make good progress when it was safe and legal to do so.

I use a lithium battery Dremel for steel and wood. I find the tiny cutting discs effective but short lived. The grinding discs requre gentle going as there isn't much torque so very high speed is in order. The wire brush is a little difficult as it needs to be on full power to have much of an effect but if you don't remember to lower the speed as you come off the job then it spins up and throws off wires. The sanding drums are good for light cleaning. I find the Dremel consumables a little costly for what you get and so have been using the variety box from Halfords. The standard collet is 3mm but I also have a pin chuck and a couple of other collet sizes. Most of my use has been drilling sub mm pin holes when making wooden hinges and jewellery and also wax buffing small wooden jewellery and cabinet parts.

Excellent work! It looks non slewing to me, that can be changed though. Use a bit of round pipe for the upright and then sleve over it with a larger bore pipe that the lift arm and ram attaches to. To stop it slewing loosely and out of control add a worm and wheel to the bottom and just wind a handle on the worm to slew. You can get a worm and wheel off an old chain hoist. You could also get an electro-hydraulic pump and replace the hand pump with it. You could also add a pair of fold down legs for a greater static lift with more stability.

Channel 5 tonight Chris Barrie's 'Britain's Greatest Machines' features Land Rovers and Routemaster buses. Repeats on Saturday.

One of my students at college was using his iphone as an inclinometer on his cabinet work and looking very proud of it. Then I pointed out that he didn't have a flat edge on the iphone to gauge from as I rocked it. I would go with the cheap one for a one off job if it is accurate enough for your needs. How accurate do you need it to be? I have transfered relative inclines using a spirit level and a packing piece at one end.

I've already had the switch off it and flushed it with WD40. That wasn't a good move really as the key is now black and oily and the lock plunger's a little stickier. I don't think the plunger itself is sticking as it is nice and loose. The barrel seems to be the sticking and not popping out to allow the plunger to pop out. I really need to get the barrel out to clean and dry it before a little bit of pencil graphite is added.

Oh poo! I will have to figure out a way to open it with as little damage as possible.

Here's a photo of the lock. There are two pins holding the barrel in the lock and two (of four) more pins holding the cover plate over the body of the lock. Any thoughts as to getting these pins out without destroying the soft die cast lock body would be good. Cheers. ETA: Just a thought, the lock is stamped 1/91 on the side. A date? Does that make it a 90/110 lock?

The driven plate on a clutch conventionally has springs in the centre to transmit the drive and absorb the shock loadings. On the clutch I had removed the driven plate was solid. That leads me to suspect that the whole DMF idea is to move the shock absorbing springs from the driven plate tot he flywheel so that the flywheel becomes a consumable service item, an expensive solution to a problem that had already been previously solved by cheaper means. This increases the cost of parts and labour so increases profits for the motor industry.

Ahhh, I thought it was first Land Rover fabrication. First automotive fabrication was welding new floor pan patches into the works vans. No one told me that the pretty white fluffy stuff that appeared when welding galvanised steel sheet was a bad sign. Not good for breathing in when head down in the foot well of a Ford Escort! I moved onto restoring a couple of MGBs and found out that is is a bad thing when someone else waxoyls the sills when you still have some welding left to do.

My first one is the one in my avatar. That's if you discount chucking a wooden box between the front seats of a Series 3.

How about a Massey-Fergassion 135 restoration DVD?

I don't know if it would have the same effect on a Land Rover but when the clutch was due on my 2001 Skoda Octavia TDi recently I changed the DMF to a conventional one. The DMF needs to be changed on each clutch change where as the conventional flywheel doesn't (unless it is damaged). What I found was that there is absolutlely no vibration or noise issue. No difference in the use of gears. No difference in the low rpm lugging (I can still pull away on tick over in 3rd or 4th and pull a trailer at 30mph in 5th). Fuel consumption had been worse for a while prior to the change and has since been as good as new. The DMF springs were slack and it incredibly heavy compared to the conventional flywheel. A replacement cost next time, as a conventional three part clutch kit, will be 1/4 of the cost.

Nope, no luck. There are two pins of about 2mm diameter that are driven into the side of the die casting and into the lock barrel. Then on the cover plate, the bit with the choke cable clamp, there are four pins, one in each corner that are also driven in. I have removed the switch unit and pulled the D section pin from the centre but still can;t find a way in. I will try and post photos.

Thanks Les. I will try that. The whole assembly is loose on the bench at the moment and I am hoping that I can get into enough of it to clean it out and get it working. Cheers.