Night Train

Well this is the little crane that I now have: It isn't much and I think the capacity is probably only 250kg though the seller thought maybe 500kg, either way it suits my needs. The control is a simple power button to pump up and a solenoid to release pressure. It runs well and doesn't seem to leak or lose pressure under a load. It also came with a little 3300lbs winch which will also live in the back of the car I think, no need for a 9000lbs jobbie on an estate car! I want to keep the cost of the plumbing as low as reasonable but the flat face connectors do seem to be the way to go I think. How would I bleed the air out of this sort of system when I rebuild it? Would I need to? Thank you.

Thanks Ciderman, I will sort out what I think I want to achieve and give them a ring.

I used to have a spreadsheet in Excel where I would enter the date, the mileage, the litres of fuel and the cost. The spreadsheet then gave me a running average for each fill up and for the month and year along with the costs. I could plot a graph of mileage and fuel consumption over the year to see when I was more efficient and when I was doing more mileage. In my car it has a trip computer that tells me for each trip, much easier but no long term record.

Just my luck then, Hyphose is at the other end of the country and Pirtek is 5 minutes away! Thanks Fridge.

Sorry for being off topic but not sure what I need or where to start searching. I've never done anything with hydraulics other then self contained manually pumped jacks and engine cranes. I have just obtained a small hydraulic trailer loading crane (like a mini Hiab) with an electric hydraulic pump. What I want to be able to do is to mount the pump inside my car boot and have the crane on the trailer. I want the hose from the crane, and future tipping ram, to be able to plug into the pump in the car via some sort of quick release coupling that seals both ends from fluid leaks. I would prefer not to mount the pump on the trailer with an electrical connection as I may decide to use the hydraulic supply on more then one trailer. Any help or pointers in the right direction would be much appreciated. Also, how do I work out what size and type of plumbing are used to make sure I get the correct threaded parts and hose size? Thank you, NT

I was about to suggest this. Fill with sand, packed hard, and weld the ends of the pipe closed. Then bend it. I've never tried this but I knew someone who did this with 3" pipe and bent it with some heat.

I was once towed in my 6x6 by a SWB on the North Circular. As we passed an on slip a woman in a Renault 5 indicated to join the carriage way and tried to come in behind the SWB. Obviously I couldn't let her in but she still sounded her horn and shook her fist at me a she slammed on the brakes at the last moment.

I helped set up an event in a park where we had a load of Land Rovers showing off over logs and stuff. As part of the show I used my S3 2 1/4 petrol Safari to tow a train of 20 Land Rovers around an arena. The line was so long it went around two corners of the arena at a time with the ones near the front being dragged sideways a little on the grass. At the same show when setting up I needed to move a 25' tree trunk across the park. I didn't have a trailer to put it on and didn't want to drag it across the grass so we put one end of the tree in the back of my Safari and the other end in the back of a S2 SWB BMC diesel. We then set off with the SWB leading and me reversing all the way. Couldn't go too fast or I'd push the SWB with the tree and couldn't go too slow or I'd drop the tree. A fun and testing long reverse drive around the park. What didn't help was that I was at the back but I was also the one who knew the way so I was shouting directions through the open back doors. At another show I towed a 36 ton ballasted Thornycroft Antar with the same Safari on a slightly up hill concrete service road just for the fun of trying. I was leaving my 6x6 at a friend's place in Norfolk when I was moving house. It had the contents of my garage in the back and so weighed in at about 4 1/2 ton. The timing belt came off and left it stranded at the bottom of the hill leading to my friend's land. All we had to move it was my Skoda Estelle and a 500kg hand ratchet winch. We tried towing it with the Skoda but even with the service brakes on it couldn't even hold the dead weight of the 6x6 on the slope. So we used the Skoda as an anchor with bricks as wheel chocks and hand winched the 6x6 up the hill. We had to move the Skoda up the hill a bit for every 4' of winching. That was a long night! For some daft reason I can't remember, we didn't think of using the electric winch on the front of the 6x6. Coming home one day I found some sod had parked a twin wheel transit in front of my drive on a private road. A load of beeping and calling out didn't find the driver so I put a rope around the back axle and towed it backwards up the road with a 2.0i Montego. It left long twin wheel skid marks to show the hand brake worked and I bent the tow bar a little but it felt good. I bought an AEC Matador and put it on my drive. I was on my own and messing with it and let it roll down the drive and into the road finding out in the process that the service brakes didn't work. It bumped the stone wall opposite and knocked it down. I tried to fire up the engine but the batteries were flat. I couldn't leave it there to charge up the batteries so I had to move it. The car was also in the drive next to the Mat but there wouldn't be enough room to tow the Mat from behind without leaving my car trapped behind the Mat and next to the house. I put the Montego next to the Mat and put a rope around the front axle of the Mat and to the Montego. A lot of tyre rubber was left as I found out the Montego wouldn't pull a 7 ton Mat up the drive. Next attempt I anchored the rope to the house by poking it through an airbrick and putting a bit of timber through the rope eye inside the house. The rope went under the Mat and through a snatch block on the Mat's front axle and then to the Montego. Two to one pull and the Montego managed to move the Mat. The rope needed shortening a few times before the Mat made it all the way up the drive. Needless to say I chocked the wheels on the Mat each time. I acquired some granite cobbles, 5 tons in two trips. They were shared out between the back of the Montego and a little box trailer on 10" mini wheels. How ever you look at it, all the tyres needed a little more air on that drive. On 'acquiring' a set of stone gateposts from a neighbouring house I dragged them out of the ground and to mine with a 110 V8. The posts were 8' long and 12" square wrapped in 2x4 timber to protect them from the road.

Like I did with the back of my trailer made from a Land Rover 109 roof? The most important thing I found was to make the roof arch wider as I caught my back on the corners a few times to begin with and it was really painful.

Interesting. If your towing vehicle weighs 3.5t then you can have a GTW of 4.25t. If your towing vehicle weighs less then 3.5t then your GTW is only 3.5t. Bit of a problem if your towing vehicle weighs a just a little less then 3.5t, you would struggle to find a trailer small enough to still be legal and have any use!

I played around with this idea in the late 80's. My proposed solution was to cut the front end off an auto box so it included the torque converter, the bell housing, the input shaft, the oil pump behind it and the primary shaft to the gears. A short housing is attached to the back of the sawn off auto box that will contain the ATF and carry drive out the back to a drive flange and is shaped like an engine back plate to suit the manual box. The auto box primary shaft output flange is then used to drive a drive plate (like the standard flywheel but with as little weight as possible) with the clutch attached. The manual gear box is then attached to the clutch and the engine back plate as if it was mating to an engine. My sketches looked ok but added around 18" to an already long transmission. Torque converters are the sort of things added to manula gearboxes on commercial vehicles. Heavy haulage lorries sometimes specified it.

Me? I want to run my aircon to keep me cool but could do with an air supply sometimes. I've been lugging around a compressor but it is starting to go wrong so I am thinking of having an engine powered compressor. Anyway, it won't work. I've had the engine covers off and there isn't anywhere good to put the second compressor and get drive to it. Might look at a big 12v electric motor linked an air con compressor.

It could also be risky if someone here looked up the appropriate official website and then offered their own interpretation of what it meant in answer to a query.

I thought maybe the little 12v compressors also work with a piston albeit with a short stroke. Maybe they are diaphram compressors. If you want to know about having an air tank with acompressor then you could search Tech for On Board Air. The setups are really good using air con compressors but I suppose that could be exchanged for a 12v compressor and keeping the rest of the setup the same.

Excellent on board air posts in Tech. Even given I don't run a Land Rover at the moment I am seriously considering installing on board air on my car for work if I can get an aircon pump to fit somewhere without losing the existing aircon pump.

Modern steering geometry makes front blow outs very managable. Rear ones are like sudden onset, and continuous, over steer when you least expect it so much more difficult to control.

On my front wheel drive car I tend to get through two sets of front tyres for every set of four tyres. The new ones always go on the front. I work on the basis that I can work with over steer, if it happens, but the car naturally understeers anyway so new front tyres would sorta nutralise it a bit. Never lost control of a car at any legal speed anyway so I'm sticking to it.

Really glad to hear you are all live and with only minor injuries. Could have been so different. The driver that caused the crash that killed my brother in 1991 did the same thing, stopped to look and then drove off. Fortunately he phoned his girlfriend to tell her about it and she had the sense to shop him to the police so he got charged. Lets hope someone shops this a**ehole.

Funny, at the time of the OP's post I was just on Ebay looking at the self same compressor this afternoon and was thinking of posting to ask if it was any good. I am tempted now but weighing up whether to get the compressor or a replacement saw for my workshop.

This may not work in a large space but I did once secure a garage with halon fire extinguishers. If entry was gained then the garage filled with halon caused by the 'fire' that triggered it. I knew of a garage owner who really didn't mind thieves climbing into his yard. All the internal walls and surfaces were heavily greased and angled to make sure the thieves would still be there in the morning. The local mob then made sure the thieves didn't work that patch again.

We may talk later. I am away on a course on a Welsh mountain at the moment and have to disappear now.

OK, what would you reckon to shipping her to Manchester for me?

I am tempted to just get her back but first problem is transport. Storage isn't easy but could be sorted if I made some space. I've no funds to work on her either, new relationship, PT work and studying two courses and not a lot of suitable tooling anymore. If it were on the doorstep then yes, I'd find space now. But if there is no chance of being road legal then I would just have an interesting garden ornament.

It would seem my old 6x6 Land Rover Scammell is back on Ebay. She is a bit of a mess really and Ashcrofts seems to have been wrongly credited for my transfer box but for £70 I'm thinking.... If, and it is getting to be a huge if, was to get her back I would need to sort out transport and getting it SVAed. Now the first problem is just money and maybe a mega forum relay to Manchester as I don't have a vehicle to move her, the second is a nightmare. So here's a question: Are there any SVA experts out there who might be able to offer their thoughts on how likely it might be to become road legal again? Things were so different when she was built. I wouldn't want her to go to scrap but there is a lot of work involved, more then she is worth if I am honest, and I am probably the only person in the known universe who knows how to sort out the transmission (and would want to!). However, if anyone else wanted a project then I could help and advise. She could be recycled for things like the wider axles (long S3 half shafts both sides), the suspension system and maybe other unsusal bits and bobs I guess.

A friend and I did that in the late 80's with a 109" truck and an 88" top. It provided plenty of dry space inside and mucky space outside. It was fit for purpose and worked well. The back door of the hard top needed a bit of thought to make it work right though. Ugly didn't enter into the equation as pretty wasn't really a Land Rover term then.