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Justin Case

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  2. Like
    Justin Case got a reaction from chodweaver in Cars, Lasses and Lads - A Photo Sharing Thread   
  3. Like
    Justin Case got a reaction from Yoss in Cars, Lasses and Lads - A Photo Sharing Thread   
  4. Haha
    Justin Case got a reaction from 108 in Car features you don't like   
    The way in which in a Volvo V40 you have to set the satnav by scrolling round a screen, one letter at a time. I just hope that I never have to find my way to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
  5. Haha
    Justin Case got a reaction from D.E in Hireable Horrors   
    Advice to those tempted to have ago themselves - it is a good idea to uprate the suspension, otherwise:


  6. Haha
    Justin Case got a reaction from dome in Hireable Horrors   
    On a cost:taste ratio it is hard to beat this for that special* occasion. Yes it is bigger than a castle, or more likely in this case a prison. So I lay down a challenge; can you hire anything worse than this :
     

  7. Haha
    Justin Case got a reaction from Dan_ZTT in Hireable Horrors   
    Advice to those tempted to have ago themselves - it is a good idea to uprate the suspension, otherwise:


  8. Haha
    Justin Case got a reaction from Dan_ZTT in Hireable Horrors   
    On a cost:taste ratio it is hard to beat this for that special* occasion. Yes it is bigger than a castle, or more likely in this case a prison. So I lay down a challenge; can you hire anything worse than this :
     

  9. Haha
    Justin Case got a reaction from sdkrc in Hireable Horrors   
    On a cost:taste ratio it is hard to beat this for that special* occasion. Yes it is bigger than a castle, or more likely in this case a prison. So I lay down a challenge; can you hire anything worse than this :
     

  10. Haha
    Justin Case got a reaction from AnthonyG in Hireable Horrors   
    I thought that I had set the bar high, but the fact that the Reliant van is available for FUNERALS raises it just above the Range Rover Sport
  11. Haha
    Justin Case reacted to DVee8 in Hireable Horrors   
  12. Like
    Justin Case reacted to Asimo in Hireable Horrors   
    This is worse because it still has a spare wheel on the rear door.

     
    And this is worse as well. Just how pissed would you have to be?

     
  13. Like
    Justin Case got a reaction from Asimo in Hireable Horrors   
    On a cost:taste ratio it is hard to beat this for that special* occasion. Yes it is bigger than a castle, or more likely in this case a prison. So I lay down a challenge; can you hire anything worse than this :
     

  14. Like
    Justin Case got a reaction from DSdriver in Car features you don't like   
    The way in which in a Volvo V40 you have to set the satnav by scrolling round a screen, one letter at a time. I just hope that I never have to find my way to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
  15. Haha
    Justin Case got a reaction from myglaren in Car features you don't like   
    The way in which in a Volvo V40 you have to set the satnav by scrolling round a screen, one letter at a time. I just hope that I never have to find my way to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
  16. Like
    Justin Case reacted to sierraman in Writing on the wall for some manufacturers?   
    They won’t go ‘we can’t do it’, it’ll just be the usual case of private school educated people making decisions on behalf of the average working person of whom they’ve no concept of what it’s like to go out to work and have to find money for things.
  17. Like
    Justin Case reacted to Poweredbyhopealone in Writing on the wall for some manufacturers?   
    Just to wade into the Hydrogen fuel debate here because its one I have a vested interest in.
    The technology is there, it works and its not a great deal more expensive than battery tech however, the lack of infrastructure and the lack of "green hydrogen" production means that at the moment its not viable for passenger cars on a large scale.
    It already works with fleets of return to base vehicles as TFL are proving with their hydrogen bus fleet, because they have their own infrastructure and although not green, they buy hydrogen produced as a by-product from chemical production which isnt as bad as in terms of emissions as from other sources like methane reformation. Hydrogen vehicles will almost certainly take the HGV roles because the fuel is more energy dense than batteries at the moment. Hyundai (of course) are testing some at the moment on a large scale. I know Elon has the electric semi truck but unless he has found some workaround to the laws of physics which i'm not aware of the performance is going to be limited.
    The synthetic fuel idea is a non-starter because whenever you burn anything in air you get NOx which we are realising recently is a great deal more damaging to the environment than we thought.
    BEV's are pretty shortly going to be hobbled by materials costs. Lithium in particular is going stratospheric in price and of course it's not just vehicles which use this type of battery so honestly, like everything its going to come down to costs and what supporting infrastructure gets built first.
     
    I'm doing an MSc in Renewable Energy Engineering,  AmA
  18. Like
    Justin Case reacted to coalnotdole in Enfield 8000 1970's Electric Car, Second Car Acquired   
    This post will be a bit out of sync with the rest of the thread but If I don't post it now it will be even more out of time whenever I end up posting it.
     
    Back in October Austat tagged me in the eBay Tat thread - This brought my attention to a listing which due to not mentioning the word "Car" or "8000" anywhere in the listing had somehow evaded all of my Enfield related saved searches on eBay! 
    The car in question was a couple of years later than my orange one, Appeared to have been off the road since 1990, Had a cracked windscreen, no interior, was missing its aluminium bonnet and had already been raped for its mini cooper spec steel wheels which the seller had listed and sold separately.
    Naturally I had to throw a bid at it on the off chance it would turn out to have a mint chassis saving me much time and work on the rather crispy orange one.
     

    Listing image showing mismatched trailer wheels fitted and its recently removed original Mini Cooper spec rims in the background
     

    Collecting it from the bubble car museum in norfolk was an interesting experience...
     


    I've seen photos of this same badging on a couple of other enfields so assume it must be an ex electricity board car that was still in use into the 80s
     

    Seatbelt anchorage approval plate which the earlier cars don't have.
     

    The factory seems to have acquired a bead roller in the intervening two years between the orange car being built and this one - Literally every flat panel on this car has about 5 beads rolled into it!
     
      
    This car retains its solenoid based speed control system, albeit a later revised 1980s version that was retrofitted after the original systems had issues with contactor wear.
     

    Dashboard wiring is a lot more original than that on the orange car
     

    And being a later car, instead of the smiths electric fan heater for windscreen and footwell heating fitted to earlier builds this one has a 12v hairdryer mounted poking through a hole in the dashboard!
     

    Transformer and rectifier boards for onboard battery charger
     

    Timer control unit for battery charger
     

    Safely tucked away at the back of a friends industrial unit for the timebeing....
     
     
    As a bonus here's a photo showing the stash of tax discs I found while working on the orange one covering 1987 until 2015:

     
    As usual cheers for reading and/or commenting
    Dave
  19. Like
    Justin Case reacted to coalnotdole in Enfield 8000 1970's Electric Car, Second Car Acquired   
    After the resounding failure of my first attempt at enfield body support sections I decided to try and remove as many of the possible causes as possible - I think the fact I could only fold the channel section to 45 degrees in order to be able to get it through the swager meant it wasn't as rigid as it would be if it was folded to 90 degrees to begin with which then meant as I swaged the curved flange onto the edges it tended to introduce a bow into the whole channel section.
    Also I only had a 4" long v block tool for the flypress so taking multiple bites at sharpening up the fold lines probably introduced more curve where it wasn't wanted.
     

    Step one was to machine up a decent length V former.
     

    fitted to the flypress with a matching lower former.
     

    I then dogged down the original section on a flat surface so i would be able to measure it as accurately as possible.
     

    Hopefully this shows the curvature which needs to be replicated.
     

    I made up two accurate templates of the curves to aid marking out the new sections.
     

    And I made another new lower roller for the swager that's just small enough to fit inside the channel section meaning it can be folded to 90 degrees before its put through the swager.
     

    I also thinned down the top roller slightly to allow a tighter fold angle.
     

    Took my time with this one and it came out pretty well.
     

    Curved where it should be!
     

    And straight where it should be!
     

    End profile - the distortion on the folds is only at the ends where the swager starts and stops, it gets trimmed off before fitting to the car.
     

    Folded up some small corner gussets.
     

    Replacement alongside the original.
     

    And test-fitted on the car.
     

    Forward end.
     

    Rear end.
     
    It'll want a bit of fine tuning/adjustment but overall I'm pretty happy with the fit and it sort of proves the theory which is good as i think there will be quite a few sections which will need replacing!
     
    Cheers for reading and commenting!
    Dave
     
     
  20. Like
    Justin Case reacted to coalnotdole in Enfield 8000 1970's Electric Car, Second Car Acquired   
    As the enfield seemed to do quite a poor job of keeping the rain out even before I removed the rear glass in order to take the wing off it seemed like getting it somewhere reasonably dry to live while it awaits its turn in the workshop would be sensible. 
    One metal shed off facebay later....




    Its somewhat a snug fit!
     
     

    There was just about enough space for me to drill out the spot welds and remove the rotted channel section from under the side window
     


    This is would be my first attempt at making curved flanges, I've bought a vintage edwards jenny roller off eBay to try and form the curved section
     


    However my first test piece wasn't much of a success!
     

    Rollers as supplied with the swager/jenny roller - the stepped lower roller only seems to work if flanging really thin metal of less than half a mm. I made up a new lower roller without the step out of a bit of delrin pressed onto a steel shaft.
     

    Channel section folded up and marked out with measurements from the original section to try and replicate the curve - as the bottom roller of the swager is too big to fit inside the channel i had to only fold the sides to 45 degrees, then swage the flanges before folding the sides to 90 degrees on the flypress.
     

    Rolling the swage.
     

    And the end result after folding the sides to 90 degrees on the flypress - the whole thing is as wonky as a donkeys hind leg
     

    As you can just about see bothe faces of the channel have ended up curved whereas the face on the right should be straight and just the flanged edges curved. 
    I chalked this one up as a fail and vowed to try again with a different approach!
     
     
  21. Like
    Justin Case reacted to Will on Syros in Enfield 8000 1970's Electric Car, Second Car Acquired   
    A lovely little car.  I just bought an Enfield 8000 myself and it's getting a restoration; fortunately it's in a bit better condition that thi syellow/orange one.  How is the restoration going?
    I've noticed that a lot of people think these cars were made on the Isle of Wight...but only a very few were..less than 10.   Manufacturing Enfields at the Isle of Wight factory was stopped in 1973after an industrial dispute, and Giannis Goulandris, the owner of Enfield Automtive, shipped production of the car to the town of Ermoupoli on the island of Syros where they were made up until 1976.  They were then sent back to the Isle of Wight just to have the batteries fitted and to be sold as they were not road legal vehicles on Greece.  I've lived on Syros for 4 years now and the Enfield is a BIG deal here. The Prime Minister even had the one from the museum here taken to Athens last year so he could stand by it in a press announcement about electric cars.   It was the first mass produced electric vehicle...so is a bit of automotive history...and of the roughly 120 made, fewer than 15, so far as I can tell, are still working or currently being restored. 
    Attached are some photos...the factory where they were made was a supermarket until a couple of years ago and is currently being used as a storage building for the Industrial Museum in the town.  The group photo shows Goulandris in white overalls and the workforce at the factory when the first Enfield was finished in October 1973.  The other 3 photos are the only ones I have of inside the factory.






  22. Like
    Justin Case reacted to warch in New members, introduce yourself here.   
    That's practically the Autoshite mission statement
  23. Sad
    Justin Case reacted to Bren in The grumpy thread   
    Despite being under a specialist for my asthma it has got much worse over the last two months - it is even keeping me awake at night. I was recalled to the hospital for an emergency review - was told my eosiniphils and FeNo were very high. I am waiting to go on a different shot.
    I have also been suffering with aching joints, bones, headache, earache and nausea - it didn't register this started when my asthma got worse. I cannot even get through to my doctor and I have rang the unit that looks after me but they havn't returned my calls. My concern is that something like vasculitis is on the horizon.
    It is so long since I felt well I cannot recall what it feels like.
  24. Like
    Justin Case reacted to willswitchengage in Manchester clean air zone May 2022   
    Yep. New homes are usually genuinely greener than what they replace in terms of thermal efficiency but these gains are generally neutralised by the fact that they are almost always built in locations where the only practical transport option is the car. They are in non-walkable locations a long way from amenities or employment and generally with zero or a token gesture of awful cycling infrastructure. They are not linked to public transport. Naturally therefore new build owners will be locked into car usage for the duration of the property's existence - which is a long time. Greeny chops here decided to live somewhere where I can walk to the shops and train stations, of course this is a 'ghetto' location not a utopian new build.
    In other obvious solutions why don't we scrap the M6 toll? It's empty because of the tolls but would be an overnight win at keeping through traffic out of the West Midlands. It would finally make a white elephant useful.
  25. Like
    Justin Case reacted to martc in Manchester clean air zone May 2022   
    The Hull to Manchester line was going to be electrified, but this was cancelled due to 'costs'. Cancelled after they had upgraded all the signalling for the modern, electric trains, which are now not going to use the line. So expect smokin' diesels coming into the middle of Manchester for years to come. See also the 'Hope' line from Sheffield.
    But they squander squillions on HS2. Northern Powerhouse my arse.
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