B reg 90

If I read you post right you have a discovery 3? If so you have a fuel burning heater. However it will not help with starting unless you retro fit a controller to run the heater up before the car starts as it only kicks in after start to warm the engine up quicker. Note that on a Disco 3 the glow plugs run for longer than the lamp on the dash. Count to 30 slowly, then start. If that doesn't help count to 30, turn ignition off, count to 30 again. It should start unless the majority of the glow plugs are knackered. I believe that the glow plugs can shear off when you try and change them resulting in the need to remove the cylinder heads to complete the job. Note you have to lift off the body to get the heads off, so this job could escalate more than you think. Disco 3.co.uk has a good write up on how to check which glow plugs are working/not working

you will like it!

I had a cheap welding helment. Lost it. Thought I'd treat my self and spend £60 on one. It was clearly the same carp as a £20 unit... Also kept cutting out (1/2 second arc flash). It was returned. Then decided I liked my eyes (I have a Perspex lens in one eye - before that operation I could only see out of one eye - being 'one eyed' makes you realise how important that one last eye is....) drank a bottle of wine and ordered a speedglas unit. Cromwells was cheapest, you can get discount codes that work of the tinternet. It's superb. I can see the weld pool better, my eyes are strained less, and it's a quality bit of kit. Yes it's expensive and if you don't have the cash you don't have the cash. But if you can spring for it I'd recommend it. Everyone at the local college where I have been doing night school TIG welding has tried it and all thought it was a superb helmet. Adrian

The RC cars are scale in every way, including costs. If you buy the base model you will find that you uprate the diffs, suspension links, shocks, motor, gearbox, steering servo, etc. The parts add up! But they are fun!

The car was ok to drive. I would say that it was the same as a lifted 90 with simex on with one exception - the steering link design was a compromise that resulted in the drag link slightly rotating the track rod up or down (depending on which way you steered). This caused a slack spot in the steering and an element of vagueness to the direction! I believe the steering design was driven by Andy's desire for the axles to be capable of bolting into any land rover. It made handling at speed interesting. However I did overtake cars in the M6 in it after a while. This means that either I'm mad (I learnt to drive on a fordson tractor with about a 1/3 of a turn of slackness in the steering - you guided it), or it was comparable to driving my lifted 90 on simex. The high cog you are worried about will not show on the road - it will be far more of an issue off road at any kind of angle. Adrian

Think you are referring to a car known as 'Portal Bob'. If so, it was built by Andy Thomlinson (Plasma winch rope supplier/Ruftracks). It was an 80" wheel base and was bobtailed at the back. He had Volvo C303 axles fitted by GEMM4x4 in Scotland. They also added a full body cage. It had a 3.9 V8. I bought the car off Andy a few years ago, took off the Volvo axles and refitted normal LR ones. I did use the car a bit. I liked parking it at work as it helped everyone think I was certifiable..... Also did a club offroad event in it. When I bought it Andy was slightly concerned that I was not trailering it away - I drove it home across Scotland. Also drove it 300 miles to Yorkshire. Handling was slightly interesting as the short wheel base, high center of gravity and 35" simex made it a bit twitchy. Then sold it to a guy who thought his wife would like it (???) I have more pictures if you want + the magazine with the original article written about the car. Adrian

There is a face book page dedicated to TD6 installs in land rovers 'Land Rover BMW Engine Conversions' The TD6 is a BMW engine. The BMW code for the engine is 'M57'. Found in BMW cars, X5's and TD6 range rovers.

They were the offroad tyre to have in the early 90's. If you had the 7.50 version you had big tyres! Soft compound if I remember right and don't last well on road -10,000 miles max?

I had a cheap helmet. It failed after about a year. Decided to go a bit more expensive and spend £60. The helmet I received looked identical to the cheap old one..... It also randomly cut out for a 1/2 second giving me arc flash 1/2 way though a weld. I returned it. Then decided I like my eyes and bought a £230 speedglas unit. It's superb compared to the cheap ones. Obviously if you don't have the cash it's not an option, but if you can spring for one they are much, much, much better. The wide field of view, brighter when off, better controls, seems to be brighter with out arc glare when welding, far better build quality, etc. I strongly recommend one if you going to be doing more than 5 minutes of welding every now and then. I found best price was on Cromwells web site. I managed to find an online discount code on the web as well that discounted it. Adrian

This is what I did for a series one chassis. Also used to use on my 90 after off raiding. Get some copper heating pipe to match your hose pipe diameter. close off one end(crimp/solder). drill 2mm holes in pipe sides, 90 degrees appear, 3 or 4 rows of holes along pipe, stagger holes. Put a small nail in each hole in turn and leaver nail towards open end of copper pipe. It will make the water jets face backwards at roughly 45 degrees. put your now holed copper pipe in end if your hose, jubilee clip on. Stick the contraption into a chassis rail and turn on the water. Assuming the water pressure is good enough the water jets will 'suspend' the copper pipe and tend to draw it along chassis. Push to end and slowly withdraw and u will wash all the dirt towards u. If necessary add extra drain holes in chassis. It will remove a lot of material adrian

Guy Martin 'Speed' showed how to do this to make a canopy for his 24hr endurance bike ride. If I remember it was aply wood box with heat lamps in it. Place in sheet of clear plastic, turn on lights, then vacuum to draw down. Seemed to work and looked very home made.

Looks good!

You could also try AM Steer (www.amsteer.co.uk) -they seem to make and refurbish custom track rod ends if you want to fix your current 'ends'

To measure taper I clamped a track rod end to my milling machine table with the taper sticking up vertically. Then measured the taper as follows: Put a lever dial gauge in the chuck and sit it against the ball joint taper at 12 o'clock (top view). dropped table 0.200" and then read off change on lever dial gauge. Repeat on the other side (6 o'clock), then calculate the angle on both sides using trigonometry and average - this means you don't need to have the ball joint sticking perfectly perpendicular to the milling machine table. If you feel super accurate repeat at 3 and 9 o'clock. Then look up 'Xkut reamers' on internet and order a taper reamer to suit. If I remember rightly there are some slight/tiny differences between the ball joint taper and the taper reamer. Adrian

I found this web site useful. See link below. www.vapourmatic.com They list by part type, so you can look up 'steering joints', then '4wd' then by a very handy 'cranked arm' section. Then it gives you a table of all the joints they do. Pick one you like the look of and it will then tell you what it is fitted to (as long as it is a tractor!) I found a nice cranked joint. But I did need to ream out the taper.

paint it within 4 hours of blasting to prevent corrosion starting

If u go non genuine, then buy from somewhere where u can measure the bearing diameters with a micrometer. I found a britpart stub axle to be smaller in diameter than the stub axle I was rejecting. Bought genuine. Other thought - all the vehicle wieght is carried through stub axles.

Re the extra power in a TDI 'auto'. I persoanly suspect that the electronic control allows a more complex fuel map while still complying with the emissions regs. A mechanical injection pump can only have a simple fuel map by comparision, i.e. a certain rate of fuel increase per rev , etc. When this comes up from time to time I always end up wondering why electronic fuel pumps for TDI's are not sought after items as they will allow more flexibility for tuning as well I suspect.

David, Re power - I fitted a 60 amp supply to the garage to a seperate distribution board a year or two ago to run a inverter that can pull 40 amps on full load. As I don't use the inverter at the same time as the blaster I'm good?

2 x air compressors - I've been looking at costs for a second compressor! Dyson filters -I'm not blasting every day, so I may yet just get a few spare filters as you suggest. The water jacketed air cooler works. I get far more water in the coelescer on the regulator. However I am sure there is a more efficient coelescer than the one I have. I think my next step is to look at more air capacity - I do not run out of air, but running,my compressor flat out will kill it eventually. Adrian

I'll give a water filter/trap a go and see what difference it makes. I'm reluctant to ditch the air filter in the Dyson as the fine powder is not to good for me or the side ways on my mill/lathe. My more pressing need is more air. My compressor can keep up, but only if it runs 100% of the time. Suspect that longer term that this will not be too good for it. I've also had issues with damp air once the compressor/air tank get hot. I now have a section of the air line jacketed with the garage water supply. Turn on the tap and it cools the air and causes much more water to drop out in the coalescer. Adrian

Rob, Bought glass beads to do aluminium. I find the sponge after filter on the dyson blocks and I loose suction. Do you have this issue? Adrian

Rob, In the video I was using some machine mart Aluminium Oxide. It's dusty. I have since bought a 25 KG bag of Aluminium Oxide and while I was paying postage added some glass beads for good measure. Not used them though yet. Adrian

Finally will it blast something. I grabbed the nearest bit of steel I had and set too: http://vid46.photobucket.com/albums/f101/Breg90/blaster%20cabinet/IMG_2701.mp4 After that success and a cider to celebrate I dug out an old Disco 2 caliper I had previously retrieved from a skip for a portal axle braking project: http://vid46.photobucket.com/albums/f101/Breg90/blaster%20cabinet/IMG_2702.mp4 Seems to do the job!

The 1st test - would the hoover pull a vaccum in the cabinet? http://vid46.photobucket.com/albums/f101/Breg90/blaster%20cabinet/IMG_2587.mp4 My son and the neighbours kids seemed to think this was interesting...