Stormin

I've repaired the re-coil springs on quite a few two stroke engines, chainsaws etc just by cold forming the end of the spring to put a new hook or eye onto them with no problems. As David says if you are going to do it hot you only want to heat the very ends and do it quickly. I would try cold working a couple of springs first. Two stroke re-coil springs tend to be available quite cheaply so you could have a few goes without spending too much and cheaper than getting a custom made spring.

It was a lot better than the weather for Windermere airshow was in July last year. That was virtually rained off on the Saturday and not much better on the Sunday.

That's caught me out being much earlier in the year than usual. It's been on in early September the past few years I've been.

I must have been getting confused with something else then re the Leyland Daf 4 tonner. I had a feeling some of the Abro re-furbished MJ's at Whithams had the narrow fold down centre seat as well, but could also be wrong there it was nearly four years ago I was looking.

I had a good try at this a few years ago. I had a look at the passenger seat from a civilian TK cab. There were several available secondhand but there not enough room to fit one in the MJ cab due to the transfer box levers. I did have some success mounting a centre seat from Land Rover Defender in but struggled with the seat belt mounting. I think when someone is sat there it would also make gear changing very awkward. I ended up selling the truck as I gave up on it being practical to transport three people. Best bet if you want a similar vehicle to transport more people is the later Leyland Daf 4 tonner that has small seats in the rear, not much more expensive to get hold of than an MJ and great cummins engines plus power steering. Downside is they don't look much different from a run of the mill Roadrunner, at least an MJ/MK looks military.

Would cutting the axle casing either side of the diff, work. Allowing the diff unit to drop to the floor and be dragged from under the truck? Obviously the halfshafts would have to be removed or cut also.

Poor engine has to be able to start up as well. Without turbo spinning I think it would struggle to suck much air through a thick oil or grease bath. It would also create a huge mess if anything went wrong. The time I put my Land Rover upside down it ingested oil from the air bath into the engine so wouldn't start until I removed the plugs, blew out the oil and tried again. Hate to think what it would've been like with grease.

If you keep centrifuging out the bronze dust, you could weight most of the diff in bit by bit over the coming years. Bit like panning for gold which I believe used to be popular occupation up in the Welsh mountains. Bronze was quite a good scrap price last I looked around 5 grand a tonne. Problem with turning the crown wheel round as I can see is that you'll still be putting pressure on the bad face when on the over-run, say off the throttle going down hill. You could always solve that slight issue by keeping your foot in all the time and appreciate the exhaust note. :cool2:

He can spend the full week at War and Peace without using the toilets.

Some people say .......

Bet it would smoke like a train until it got warm too, depending on diesel to petrol ratio.

Went along with the family on Saturday and had a good time. What set the show apart from others I've been to, where vehicles tend to be static, was the action in the arena. Seeing and hearing tanks move is a lot more impressive than seeing them sat still. The commentator in the arena did a fine job had plenty to say and seemed to know his stuff, well done that man. Well done also the the re-enactors and whoever else set up all the mock buildings, trenches and bunkers in the arena, there must have been a fair amount of work in that. The only downside was that some vehicles were out of bounds to viewing for large portions of the time due to the events in the arena, even if they weren't taking part at the time. But I don't suppose you can have the vehicle movements and people around at the same time. Not sure they had the 130 advertised vehicles there but I wasn't there on both days so can't be sure.

I'm not sure that without the 654 cast vehicle a vehicle can't be registered. If probably complicates matters somewhat but doesn't make it an impossibility. It puts the onus on the new owner to prove the vehicles age by whatever approved means and then go through the relevant process of MOT, SVA, plating etc if relevant.

Robert, What about fitting a one way valve in the pick-up line to stop the oil draining back. It'll stop the flow draining back to the axle and fully automatic no chance of forgetting to open the valve. Admittedly it will restrict the flow to the pump though very slightly, there's also the chance that over time debris may prevent it fully sealing but they're fairly cheap. http://www.merlinmotorsport.co.uk/p14711/ACCUSUMP-OIL-ACCUMULATOR-ONE-WAY-CHECK-VALVE/product_info.html Are you filtering the oil from the axle before it gets to the pump? An in-line visible filter would also give you a good indication of the amount of bronze dust being produced over time.

I believe the Land Rover TD5 engines also use the centrifugal oil filtering method to great effect and the engines tend to achieve great mileages as a result. I believe the sevice interval on these engines was still in the order of 10-12000 miles though. The fact that the engines in DMY's run twenty hours per day helps the oil life as a lot of the contamination comes from cold starts condensation and piston blowby contamination. Keeping an engine at operating temperature for as long as possible is desirable as a lot of this contamination can actually be evaporated out of the hot oil. Most cars and certainly most peoples military vehicles don't operate in anywhere near these ideal conditions. Whilst I accept that modern sythetic oils are far superior to past products I'm not convinced they're the miracle product that the manufacturers would have us believe. Recent experince with undue wear on my road car despite more than regular oil changes is part of my reasoning for this.

Explorers are just like buses then. You wait ages then two come along almost at once. Seems even more unbelievable that last weeks Explorer seller also had a Martian for sale. :wow:

A few very good points there Timbo. Thinking outside of military vehicles, I can think of quite a few classic cars that have renowned handling problems, would be considered downright dangerous these days and they're still on the road unmodified. I also see a lot of boy racer modified hot hatches with lowered suspension etc that likely handle worse than the original design yet these are still on the road. Back to the FV 432 surely any modification to the braking and by default steering system would have to be VOSA inspected and approved.

Is the rev counter switchable then according to how many cylinders are firing, 4,6 or 8 according to B40,60 80 etc?

Sounds like possibly the oil feed to one little end has blocked up leading to gudgeon pin seizing in little end. This has caused it to rotate and wear in the piston instead which could well be the source of your noise. Check the oil ways in the crank for blockage and also inside the conrod if any.

Does this apply even if the bottles are empty, purged and simply dummies?

The possible route referred to is not actually SVA singles vehicle type approval, if you read the link: http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?17128-Special-Types-Vehicle-Problems-A-Possible-Solution it is Individual Vehicle Special Orders. From the way I read it it can apply to more than one vehicle. Note both Paragraphs d and e refer to vehicles plural, suggesting a IVSO can be for more than one vehicle. As I said before I think what is needed is for club or organisation to put a block application forward for all FV432 vehicles, even listing all the chassis numbers if neccessary. This may or may not come back with the desired result, albeit with a few sensible over riders to cover the safety aspects, maybe vehicles limited in speed to Xmph, escort vehicles on certain road classes, maximum of X miles journey, whatever it takes to get it past the authorities. Just needs someone brave enough to test the water and try and go the legal route, what harm can that do?

Oil never wears out! Cobblers! The long chain molecules break down over time and it becomes less effective. No matter how fine the filter it won't remove water from condensation in the oil. It won't remove petrol or diesel that has seeped past the rings on cold starts from the oil. It also won't remove acids that form as a result of the combustion process. Modern oils are far better at resisting these contaminants and modern engines are far better at reducing them but you're never going to stop it. Synthetic oils are widely advertised as being good for 30 to 50 thousand miles in modern cars, I'd rather someone else tried that than me. 10K miles max between oil changes for me on my modern motors and less on the old stuff. You cannot beat regular oil changes for preserving an engine. The oil is at it's best the day you re-fill the engine with fresh and simply degrades every day from thereon.

So the most common colours of car, Black, Silver and Grey are the most likely to be involved in accidents! Bet someone took a long time to work that statistic out, or have they been corrected as a percentage of cars with those colours? Will repainting my vehicle a different colour lower the insurance premium?

Or a new engine Block. :rotfl:

Damn! You mean I've wasted lots of time and money removing a lot of the distressed look from my Vehicles :cry: