mtskull

A number of cities in France have now established clean air zones and to drive in these zones you must display a thing called a Crit’air sticker.  It is easy and cheap to apply for but, as there are rip-off merchants at large, be sure to only use the official website: https://certificat-air.gouv.fr/

You will need to upload a scan of your V5, from which they will determine the category into which your vehicle falls and send you the appropriate sticker. Costs about a fiver.

There’s no good news for owners of historic vehicles though; unlike the UK, France has no exemptions and if your vehicle is more than about 20 years old, it will not be eligible for a Crit’air classification and may not be driven in clean air zones.

The extent of the clean air zones and the rules applying to each are changing all the time, so Google is your friend here. The only zone that might affect you at present if travelling to Normandy is Rouen, which is a pain in the posterior if you wish to travel from Calais to the southwest and you don’t have a sticker. (Believe me, I know…)

I hope this helps.
 

“Hurricane fighter jets”. 😂

I’m currently involved in rebuilding a Defender 90 on to a Maer galvanised chassis and initial impressions are very favourable. I’ll give an update as the job progresses.

I haven’t done one before but the people who I am helping have done lots of them and they reckon Maer are the best.

This has probably been raised before but, a word of warning: Don’t fit a galvanised chassis if there is any possibility that you might one day wish to export the vehicle to the USA. There are exemptions to their regulations which apply to vehicles over 25 years old but if it is obvious that the chassis has been replaced, they no longer regard it as a 25 year old vehicle. Tales abound of Land Rovers being seized and crushed…

4 hours ago, johann morris said:

Am I lucky, is the Frosts conditioner the answer or are we worrying too much about the supposed problems with E5/10 petrol?

 

Probably a bit of all three.  Let’s not forget though, that it is very easy to blame stale fuel for rough running whilst overlooking the possibility that other things might be the culprit. For example, points can stick and condensers can degrade during periods of inactivity.

Right, I’m now going to try to start my motorcycle, which has been standing in an unheated garage for two years with the tank half full of E5.  Wish me luck….

21 hours ago, LarryH57 said:

So the ethanol and water is heavier than Petrol?

Exactly.  I don’t know if ethanol is heavier than petrol but water certainly is, whether or not it is combined with ethanol.

The previous suggestion about adding food colouring is a good one; a little goes a long way and although it doesn’t affect the process of the ethanol combining with water, it colours water but not petrol, making it very easy to see which is which.

To be clear, the problem with ethanol isn’t that it is a bad fuel as such (leaving aside the issues with seals & diaphragms in vehicles that were not designed to use it). The problem arises when it is left open to atmosphere (such as in a partly filled tank) for any length of time. Then it will absorb moisture, with all of the issues that entails.  If you have E5 or E10 in your tank and aren’t going to use the vehicle for a while, best to either fill the tank brim full or, even better, drain it and run the carb & fuel lines dry.

1 hour ago, LarryH57 said:

My theory; when the Lwt is started in the garage, the fuel sucked up the pipe is pure petrol as the ethanol is floating at the top. But once on the move it gets moved around and mixed, causing the rough running. After all my engine was designed for leaded petrol?

Your thoughts!

The ethanol content of fuel is fully dissolved, so the ethanol won’t be floating at the top. It is more likely that your problem is caused by water contamination, particularly if your vehicle has been standing for a long time.  Ethanol is hygroscopic i.e. it absorbs moisture from the atmosphere. Over time, this  ethanol/water mix then separates from the fuel and sinks to the bottom of the tank, where it lies harmlessly out of reach of the pick-up pipe until you go for a drive, whereupon it gets shaken up and disperses into droplets which are sucked into your fuel system, hence the rough running.  
My advice would be to stand the vehicle on a level surface overnight, then drain about half a litre of fuel into a clear container and let it stand for a couple of minutes; if you can see one layer floating on top of another, then the bottom layer is water.
The rest of the fuel should now be OK; you might even notice an improvement in running, as the ethanol that has mixed with the water will also have been removed.

On 2/13/2023 at 10:44 AM, andy brown said:

I found they at the time Canada was rather laid back re pay back times on l.l but ifound that the US started to put the squeeze on Canadian gov; to push UK to pay for what they owed ,this late forty seven  ..one thing to bear in mind the US saw the labour gov; as a bunch of commis with there national health scheme and trade union council ,US had waited years for the opportunity to nail the UK to the floor and here it was on a plate......

To be continued......

I don’t think anybody doubts that in the late 1940’s the USA was in a position to dictate terms to the U.K. government (although that had nothing to do with Lend-Lease and everything to do with the 1946 Anglo-American Loan Agreement).

What I would like you to make clear is why you believe that the secret burial of 300-odd tanks would have made any difference?

Well said, John.

Whilst I understand how the US government might insist that equipment supplied under lend-lease should be either returned, paid for or destroyed when no longer required, how could this explain the (highly secret) burial of hundreds of Churchill tanks, which were not supplied by the US but were entirely manufactured in the UK?

Why go to the trouble of chiselling off all of the data plates just to send them to a scrap yard anyway?
Is there any evidence to connect the data plates found in the scrapyard with the allegedly buried tanks?

On 12/18/2022 at 2:56 PM, XS650 said:

AFAIK  there was no such a thing as a Matador 4x4 refuelling tanker in service?

Looks like a Bedford  QL 

Here’s a comparison of the vehicle in question with a QL and a Matador.
Matador 4x4 tankers evidently do exist (see photo a few posts previously); whether or not they are period correct probably wasn’t much of a consideration to the producers, as evidenced by some of their other choices.

14 hours ago, XS650 said:

A few more 'Rogue Vehicles' on this axis airfield-

 

Spotted the Matador bowser and is that a Bedford MW in the foreground?

That said, it’s entirely plausible that the Germans would have made use of captured British vehicles; is there any record of them doing so in North Africa? 
* Edited *  Yes there is. 

8 hours ago, eddy8men said:

i'd heard of tanks being pushed into the shoreline to extend the yard but then again i hear a lot of tank stories !

Were the tanks brand new and packed in crates with a load of Jeeps and Spitfires?  😂

Hard to tell from the photo but, to my eye, it doesn’t look anywhere near long enough to be a Bristol RE.

It’s fairly straightforward to work out the location from this old photo and present day Google Maps image, although in opposite orientation. The old greyhound stadium can still be discerned centre right in the modern image with Pounds yard top right.

Excellent!  You deserve a slice of good fortune 👍
 

What next, swap the diff or just transplant the entire axle?

15 hours ago, Dog Blamer said:

It isn't always because the owner is too tight to buy new ones. A friend was forced to use 60+ year old tyres because there was nothing available to replace them with unless he fitted ribbed tyres front and rear. Not safe on a motorcycle and looks really stupid on a vintage bike.

Whilst sympathising with your friend’s dilemma, it shouldn’t need pointing out that 60+ year old tyres are not safe on a motorcycle either.

2 hours ago, Old Bill said:

Thanks chaps for all of your thoughts. This one is absolutely perfect but I suspect that as a manufacturer in China, they will want to sell me a ton rather than a foot! Tufnol rod is period and will do the job so I have ordered some up. Thanks for the reminder Andy.

 

Steve    🙂

I just clicked on the “contact us” part of that website and there was an option to “get free sample fast”.  Very cynical of me, I know but you don’t appear to need very much, so a free sample quantity might serve your purpose….

Everything about it is consistent with this Otter.

11 hours ago, Smithy said:

… the Allied equipment was pretty much spot on. 

Except for the Harvards masquerading as Typhoons…. 🙄

54 minutes ago, SimonBrown said:

Another "tank in a bog" story....I wonder...

Brand new and still in its packing case, I expect.

🤔 Looks a bit to good to be true…

19 hours ago, Runflat said:

UNEARTHED: WW2 Buffalo Tank Buried For Almost 75 YEARS! - YouTube 

That’s an interesting video clip but I really do wish they would stop calling it a tank....🙄

On 5/24/2021 at 8:26 PM, Robert Dickinson said:

Any tips or advice will be great, slightly different from a CVRT I know, but I'm loving the fact that I can make this crossover

The one piece of advice I can offer is this: The 48nnip isn’t a bad carb but you will be surprised at how badly an engine will run if the 3 diaphragms (2 accelerator pumps and one enrichment device) aren’t in tip-top condition. 
Best to just replace them (even if they appear to be OK) and keep a spare set. Beware of “New Old Stock” diaphragms that may not be compatible with the ethanol in today’s petrol. 

9 hours ago, ruxy said:

Your Transit should have started and run with it ,  you may have had a problem starting if the engine was hot , you just let them cool and keep brimming the tank with 2 galls of diesel until no petrol.

Whilst that may be true for “traditional” Diesel engines, the ethanol in today’s petrol will destroy the seals, O-rings and plastic components found in modern common rail Diesel engines, and it doesn’t take much to do it. 

What is the question?