CreepingJesus

I'm having real trouble uploading images too, it's really hit and miss - and about 90% fail at that. Usually just get a coloured field instead of the actual pic, usually black or blue, but sometimes white. I suspect in my case it's at least partly a shitty data signal causing something to time out.

Until Daf launched the clean sheet design MX engines in the mid noughties, their bigger engines were redeveloped Leyland ones they'd been revising since the 70s. Probably didn't bear much relation to the original by the end, but they'd coaxed a reliable 430bhp out of it (albeit it wasn't the torquiest). There's been some absolute shit in service here, cascaded down from elsewhere and pretty much held together with cable ties and prayers. Cheers Stagecoach. A while back, I ran for the bus as it was leaving: I thought the driver had stopped for me; nope, the shitty old Optare Solo had lunched its diff! I'd have laughed, but it meant a long wait for the next one...

Is the bolt #21 on the diagram in that location on your engine? I'm wondering if it's been moved up to where you've plugged the bolt in, if Mercedes revised that casting. I didn't realise it was such an effort for you write these posts! I'm sure with your persistence and Google-fu you'll get it in the end. Both car and language.

No pic, but I was passed by a Rolls limo with '1 ORD' on it yesterday, and what looked very much like a close protection Rangey shadowing it. Either somebody's going to great lengths (and expense) to pretend they're nobility, or they really are and they don't do low key. I'm also on the hunt for 'YE51 SLK' on a Merc SLK which lives locally. Seen it a few times, just never got the pic. Yet.

Set your mate up with a van full of tools and an amber lightbar on the roof, and a set of overalls (I did think nice clean Rolls Royce ones, but utterly manky Cummins/Scania/Fendt ones, or even ATS/Kwik Fit might work), and have him block the drive of the target. Leave the engine running, have him get out, take one look at the target, dry his teeth and declare it fucked/not worth it. Then have a brief argument with him, and insist you'll do the seller a favour in taking it for scrap money. Haul the A frame out of the van, hook up and smoke it out of there... May not work with a newish McLaren or a very frilly Ka, but anything in between's fair game.

Just out of curiosity, are (or perhaps were) police spec radios massively more powerful than anything the general public can legitimately acquire? I suppose the answer and reason why are bloody obvious, but while we're on the subject I thought I'd ask. Many years ago when I was a courier, we used the same Motorola sets as Strathclyde Rozzers, and used to suffer a fair few dead patches in Glasgow city centre. The polis never seemed to, but I understood their Motorolas had some sort of signal booster pack, and very strong aerials. Our base was close to theirs, but their transmission aerial made ours look a bit weedy for sure!

Dunno. Unless that's the Corsa, cos I can only remember the 'SP12' bit at the start of the plate. I've probably never read the rest of it for laughing. Twenty years ago the Fife CID used to run about in mid 90s Escort TDs which were utterly hanging. All of them were gloss blue and still had Laidlaw's stickers and plates on. They also stood out like a sore thumb.

Over here (East Arse of Fife) they have a grey 5-dr Corsa on a 12 plate that stands out an absolute mile. Probably doesn't even blend in round the Leven and Methil hoods. Not with two burly blokes crammed in it looking like they're really* enjoying it. SP12BVD, still in operation as of Sep 2022.

The Ford garage I worked for in the late 90s got an early morning delivery of a (then) Fife Constabulary V6 Mondeo which had thrown a leg out of bed the night before in a chase on the A92. There were strict orders to do no more than lift the engine and ECU and await a replacement from SVO, which was couriered up very quickly. If memory serves me correctly, various bits of both engines were lock wired to prevent 'inspection'. Tweaked? I'd say so. When Fleming Thermodynamics had a place in Clydebank, they'd certainly fitted a few Sprintex blowers to motorway patrol cars for Strathclyde and Aberdeen coppers. Tweaked? Definitely!

Study the dipstick deposits very carefully - if you wear glasses as I do, propping your gegs up on your head helps massively - be sure to be seen inspecting the sills and door bottoms with an ostentatiously large magnet, all while firing the seller the odd knowing glance. Once you've established your superiority over the quivering beta wreck seller, poker face them while you lowball the hell out of them. Then, once you've bested them in combat bought it, a big smile and a hearty hand shake makes sure they'll think you're fantastic, and the transaction was top notch. Tell you what, a sound knowledge of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli comes in handy. It took £1300 off one of my Volvos, and the seller gave me a tenner back for petrol, when I picked it up.

Thought that was the guy from Garage 54 at a glance! If it was one of their 'experiments ' I wouldn't be in the least surprised.

Found a bike multi-tool on a path through a local golf course: it needed a bit of fettling, which it got, but it turns out it's not very good. As it's a Lidl/Aldi one, at least it's saved me £7.99 to find that out.

It was the 500:1 back axle ratio that was the issue on the LDVs! Probably the Volvo box is a better bet, it'll cope with anything an XUDT can chuck at it anyway.

R380 box in a '95 on LDV Pilot has an XUD bellhousing. It's an hydraulic clutch though, which might be an extra hassle to convert.

Dunno if this has been asked, but... Sometimes if I click into a thread for 'first unread post', it takes me way back past that point, sometimes even back to the top of page one. Deeply irritating on some long threads, as I sail past the likes I gave years ago! Any ideas? (Kindle/Silk browser btw)

More likely a hospital visit for bran flake removal and stitches, after a rust repair ouchy...

I go straight to spray contact adhesive for anything upholstery or trim. It should be available just about anywhere, from art, hobby, or office supply shops (although the latter is usually cheapest). It can be a bit of a faff to get into the U-channels on seals of this type, being a spray, but it has the upside that you get time to manoeuvre the piece into place while it flashes off. Once it's had its thirty seconds (or minute, or whatever the instructions say) you're ready to press home what you're working on. That's a big advantage when you're working along a length in stages. Love the car and the thread by the way!

<sees Peckham reference> <sees Trigger reference> <checks for Robin Reliant*> Cushty. Now had it been Denzil's old Daf 2800, I'd have been all over it. Although in fairness it would make a tidy classic truck with a more sympathetic livery.

Not as abandoned as it seemed at first sight, it seems to be literally 'out to pasture' as a farm/stable hack.

I recall Iveco falling into that trap years ago, and they'd used ridiculous fleet leases to to plump up their market position, which came back to bite them hard at the end of the term. Nearly sunk the company according to some stories. How does the fleet market play into this situation? After all, they're a big part of what filters down to the lower end of the market after a few years. A few already difficult years of course.

I'm genuinely surprised engine parts are available for the NR750: being the most expensive production bike at the time (and eclipsing the Bimota Tesi on that honour by some margin), I wouldn't have expected any of the few made to have racked up enough mileage to need them. But then, that 750 wasn't Honda's first try at non round piston engines - they'd been doing it on and off since the mid 70s iirc, although the previous efforts were 500cc racers, if I am right. All of them ended up museum/collector pieces in the end.

I've had a few FTP's in cheap old cars that required recovery home: but in each instance, I used a local recovery service who are very reasonably priced, and the repairs were cheap and easy. One of my B5 Passats' oil pump failing in Halfords car park when I'd gone in for a pack of spade connectors to sort out its' electrical maladies (!), was one incidence. The 760's random snapped cam belt was another. The T-5's ignition failing in a multi storey car park yet another. Nothing I could do about those examples, so I accepted the ruined trips and called for help. Many other times, I've got simple old donkeys running again, with nothing more than hand tools and swearing/staring at it. And when all's said and done, if it's really fucked, the scrappy gets the next call.

I was going to go and find the V8 Evinrude Volvo to post, cos it answered a long standing question for me, when I saw it: Performance Bikes late, great 'technical madman' John Robinson had built a 1,000cc stroker V-twin out of two Honda CR500 engines; I'd been idly playing with a couple of CR250 barrels on a mate's bench round about then, and wondered if the really neat packaging and tidy footprint could be used to some advantage. V8 maybe? And why stop at 250cc per pot? 8 x 500 = 4,000! 4 litre V8 stroker? Sounds fine to me... And it does, if the Evinrude Volvo is anything to go by. Split singles always sound odd, I think. Almost like a twin, but not somehow.

Some of the names are genuinely funny, but it is weird to look at now. Bit of an exodus going on it seems, which is a pity.