Tony B

20 hours ago, Richard Farrant said:

Back in the 90's the local RLC Bomb Disposal unit had a LDV 300 Convoy with a Rover V8 in it. Regularly came in for brake disc and pads renewal, they never travelled anywhere slowly!!

They had them in Nortern Ireland as well. The V8 in my old black two door ex Herford Range Rover came out of one that found  a device. Apparently the procedure was back down onto the suspect area with a roof mounted rear floodlight.  The only thing that came back in this case was the engine.

15 hours ago, Richard Farrant said:

Nothing new there, London Transport were completely rebuilding RT and Routemasters at Aldenham about 50 years ago. We did the same with army Bedford RL and MK lorries where I worked in the Seventies.

Yes but now manufactures have to sell the new widget evry month just to keep share holders and Early Adopters happy. 

When I was at college a firm came up with an Unbreakable bit of Equipment! We had to work at it, took us an hour. 😂

Make something Fool Proof. The Human race eveolves a suprior fool.

2 hours ago, mtskull said:

I stand corrected; cars and vans. I can’t find any reference to lorries, although there do appear to be plans to incentivise “green buses”.

Trouble is ,  where will all the rare earths and virgin copper nessacary to make all the Green Buses come from? I'm driving a bus now with well over 760,000 km on it,  A Plaxton Bododed Volvo Low floor , known as a Pevil, 😀 I was driving them fifteen years ago when they were new.   If on my normal school run I carry an average load of 77 on an 83 capacity vehicle, consevitvly I'm replacing 35 individual car runs. So in the two trips thats 70 lesss car journeys. And!! The carbon cost of at least one new bus has been saved, and the recycling carbon cost, what is not mentioned  by the Gabbling Masses, Recycling produces carbon and other pollutants. So what is wrong with keeping older vehicles on the road? You save on the raw material of new vehicles, and cut down waste by using slavaged or recon parts.  Any way where are they going to get people to drive all these new services?

7 hours ago, ruxy said:

I lost track of gas power ,  ISTR  approx.  1998 to 2005  car manufacturers were offering dual fuel gas/petrol Ex-Works.  Ford or Vauxhall were £ price matching to diesel & the other was £200 extra on list for diesel.

Most of the DIY gas conversion kits were of Italian manufacture (seemed reasonable quality and tanks CE certified) , two garages near me were doing a very tidy installation (and selling gas).    Then there was some pressure from some trade organization squealing to the gov. that there should only be licensed  installers with a scheme similar to Corgi  -  then it all seamed to die a death  ?    Possibly petrol had got £ lots cheaper   LoL

I don't know if mine was ex works or converted later. Will try to find out. In Ireland most cars seem to run on gas. Funnily enough Morrison's supermarkets around Kent to sell gas. A local golf club has all it's buggies on gas as the fuel is easier to store as opposed to petrol.  I know somone who runs an Onan generator of a straight Propane bottle by having a simple burner ring    attached to the top of the carb.

I have driven Hydrogen buses they were trialled by First North London. The Green credentials were used as part of London's Olympic bid,  Perfectly easy to drive , reliable and did the job.  Biggest problem was the infrastructure for fuelling, that had to be built. Volvo also trialled an Rechargable bus around Dartford last year. Clever bit of kit. There was a charging station at Greenhithe station. Each vehicle did about a 12 mile circuit. As it appraoched the station a RC system started the geneartor . Bus drove under a canatliver that lowered and charged the vehicle in about 5 minutes. Worked reasonabaly well, trouble was charger was unique and an eye watering cost. Next stage was due to test the vehicle at Heathrow airport where ground power circuit would be used to charge the beast.

I now own a 1999 V8 Discovery 2 on LPG. Current cost of LPG 64 p per litre. Costs more to half fill the petrol tank, 8 gallons than to half fill the LPG. Two tanks 30 and 50 giving nominal 70 litres. My local expert tells me expect to get 56 in.

It is an old 1999 coversion , but and most important for insurance, is listed on the Go Green Autogas web site. Drawbacks , slow to fill, but I only have one nearby fill point so may be that. I intend to alter pipe on filler which may improve matters. Easy to work on the sytem.  NGK LPG plugs £18 each, and I have EIGHT of them!!! So *** that! Standard NGK PFR6N-11 platinum plugs  run fine. They aren't cheap but taking the old ones out, I think they have never been changed. Performance, you don't notice which fuel you are on, only the little light tells you. Range, still working on that, but I'm guessing you get about 2/3 of the milage than on petrol.

Engine has done about 125,000

Go Coach has also trialled an Optare electric bus around Sevenoaks, cheap to run about £13 a day, bastard to keep going. Optare also recently sent an electric decker to Jersey to try. That wa sa total failure. 

So on balance , I'd go for gas. Easy to transport and store , unlike elecktrickery, gas burning vehicles are old technology, gasifiers were used in Sweden and during both World Wars. Most petrol engines can be converted to run on them, and Disiel but you have to dial the pump back about 30% and if you run out of gas you lose tha 30% on Disiel. 

Fortunatley, I have near by a man called Neil at Medway Dual Fuel, who is also an ex Land Rover man. Anyone intrested I can send contact details or go to his website. The guy does know his gas.

The age related plates seem to have some weird kinks. My WC51 has Registration not transferable. My WC54  had two English registrations then went to Jersey and had her Jersey registration, then came back to me. So I went down to the office at Sidcup, and guess what You had helpful humans then. They sorted the  paper work with me,  and the Lady toild me that one of the original registrations was still available, did I want it back? Took about an hour. Though there is no restriction on the VC5 re transfer on that one. 

Any idea what the WW2 trailer was?

Posted a bodge it answer to you in a PM for the wiper parking problem. Take out fuse, then add an inline fuse and switch across the box from wiper switch on vehicle to power side of fuse box.

I had a Discovery, a very fetching Bronze called Kinver Sand-romantically named after the colour of the sandstone at Kinver.

DVLA: Orange! Shees. 😪

12 hours ago, Surveyor said:

Yes thats the other one lol reminds me when I did swimmer of the watch do like the imogy

Funny enough, drill went straight through my head. 'Shout loudly 'Man Overboard' - Keep shouting until you are acknowledged. Do not take your eyes off casualty and point  towards casualty, moving  as required.

Start swimming!! Flown on it's own. This flag O-Oscar- means Man Overboard!

So there is a vested family intrest! I've read the stories, 617 of course and 9 sqaudron, the forgotten ones. Flying long distance over water is now taken for granted.  Not to mention updated accurate met forcast Then to find a tiny little target and drop unguided ordnace right on it. Those men earnt thier pay!

Joy of joys! Thanks to the help everyone has given me , My Discovery V8 now has  a brand new MOT!! Only taken 18 months, though that includes a second rebuild ogf the front because some thiving *&%%%%% stole the winch and trashed the front.

17 hours ago, radiomike7 said:

The sinking of the Tirpitz is another nonsense talked about by the press and others that should know better.

So are you ex RAF, who claim they 'Sunk it' , or ex Andrew who claim it wasn't 'sunk' as bits were still above water? l😀

Johann, I've friends at Prestinge, and went up a few weeks back to play on the Gospel Pass, and other Welsh treasures. The Green Lanes are distingushed from the roads by how far the grass extends from the middle of the track. Saw one beautiful sign. On the 'Main' road Unsutiable for LGV's. A bit further down LGV Ignore Sat Nav and re route. Under that another larger sign , WE MEAN IT! There is a narrow bridge a thousand yards down the track. YOU WILL GET STUCK.

Was narrow and all! The Discovery bareley went over it.

Next trip ! This winter, preferably with snow and after over a year of bld sweat tears money and frustration- A 1999 V8 3.9 litre  ES Auto, LPG converted , amongst other things, Discovery!

Bring it on! 😁

12 hours ago, Bob Grundy said:

I find this very hard to believe, aren't local authorities short of funds to waste resources in such a flagrant way......

I saw it, and thought you couldn't make this up. I also have your Honour!! A bus load of passengers, and the people who live on the road to back me up! 😁

Oh forgot the PS. The week before the same set of drains, there had been another set of guys plus attached vans and gully sucker, doing the same work. Road still floods when it rains.

Last week there was a machine cleaning gullys out at Bean in Kent. To begin with 4 vehicles and a sucker sitting for about for a couple of hours , with six guys playing with mobile phones. Followed by half an hour or so of two guys working the sucker with three men and a woman standing the other side of the road with clipboards watching them.

My deepest condlonces to his family. Though we never met in person, he made my life intresting at times. He will be missed.

 .  Maybe who ever wrote the script

was a history buff and got confused with this event. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_the_Dutch_fleet_at_Den_Helder

Just listened again to the broadcast yes, it  says 'Sunk one hundred and five years ago by the British Army'. ❌

🤣

Oh yes!! I heard this on the BBC Radio 4 news yesterday. Apparently and I quote - It was sunk by the Brtish Army. 🤣

I use Green Flag for all my vehicles. Have done for years, with all sorts of vehicles.  Never had a problem with anything under 3.5 ton. The good thing about them is the vehicle that picks you up takes you all the way home if required. Most compnaies won't cover a vehicle over 16 years old if it's in Europe anyway. 

I have Green Flag personal cover so any vehicle I'm in wether driving or not, is covered.

They also say if they  don't get there in one hour, you get £10. Thoese who remember The Great Storm, in 1987. I was in the New Forest with a busted Land Rover.  Total caohs on roads , they were apologising that they couldn't get an agent there in an hour, and would compensate me!! The AA and RAC were saying it would days to get to calls.

Though to be pedantic, and the Law is , part of it's joy. If you were to use said spade in a manner that convinced somone, during the course of crime that it was a firearm. You would be charged with aggrivating circumstances. The way I was taught it, if you want to aggrivate an offence, take the W.I.F.E.  Weapon, Imitation firearm, Firearm, Explosive. Bear in mind! The law was altered so that if you have a toy gun , it must be brightly coloured, unless you have an Exemption under the Violent Crime Reduction Act. , I won't comment any more on that . 🤢 Last one out, turn off the light, we don't want to warm up the atmosphere.