Dead_E23

Jump start packs: I've got one of these, and it does a great job for £62. It recently started my diesel Land Rover no bother at all when it had a completely flat battery after my brother left the interior light on for a week. When out camping last weekend the USB sockets kept our phones charged all weekend, as well as being a handy way of powering the air bed pump when the car was some distance from the tent. I keep it in the boot of the car, because it's smaller and handier than jumpleads. It's a really handy thing to have.

Speaking of London, in my part of town we have a lot of aging Dennis Enviro200 buses. Smoke absolutely pours out of these as if from a cross channel ferry, to the extent that they leave big swirling clouds of it in their wake. This never fails to amuse me.

I use a Disklock on my Defender, and leave it parked close to a wall on full lock or arranged so that if someone tries to winch it, it'll either plunge through a fence onto the neighbours' drive or climb through a hedge into the other neighbours' garden. Either would be inconvenient. 2 other tips: leave the transfer box in neutral so there's no drive. That'll fox most people.choose parking spaces where access with a hi-ab would be difficult - height restrictions are good, as are narrow roadsA Jet-lock is also a good security precaution, if not overly cheap.

If they're going to vary the limit on a motorway I reckon every 'smart' sign should have to be lit all the time, showing what the speed limit for its section is. I've noticed several times where they've had a temporary limit in place and not shown the NSL sign at the end of it, leaving you in some doubt whether you're still in a 40 or 50 limit or back to 70, and having to rely on the absence of repeater signs to confirm it. I'm on the M25 very frequently, and it often has temporary speed limits where the reason stated on the boards doesn't apply, whether for work that hasn't yet started or for an accident or obstruction that has since been cleared.

I bet it'll be so they can use less metal by fitting something more like a pie tin than a brake drum.

...but this was a Volvo fusebox, with stiffening ribs in the lid. There were probably corresponding weak points engineered into the body of the box so they could take their revenge at the parts counter if you made a crazy DIY fuse changing attempt. Anyway, I cheated fate by purchasing a kwality Rolson torx ratchet screwdriver from Maplin. It even came handy the other week when my brother asked me to investigate his screwed dishwasher!

It's worth investigating what tools you need to get into the fuse box of any vaguely modern car, or to change a bulb, as they are designed to make you boil with rage. My V70's fusebox needed a torx screwdriver to undo the lid, and I think the Mondeo that replaced it needs them too. I guess the idea is that most people will pay a main dealer (or wait two hours on a rain swept hard shoulder) to have fuses 'professionally' changed, and unless the lid was secured with special fasteners they might be tempted to take an insane gamble and attempt the job themselves. The other tool I like to carry is an bluetooth OBDII reader so I can pass the time attempting to pair it with my phone.

Shoreham car auctions stock used to be reliably crap, and they now have an online catalogue for your viewing pleasure. It doesn't look as good as it used to be though; the motor trader I knew used to visit it only occasionally and for just for a laugh as the chances of getting saleable stock were so remote. I once saw an Alfa 6 go through the ring there and make £50.

According to this article on PH (ugh) she had a special order Defender V8 auto delivered in 2002, but then asked for it to be converted back to a manual. Perhaps the clutch got too heavy as she got older and she's had it swapped back again? It should be a fairly straightforward swap - I was considering swapping the engine and autobox from my knackered Range Rover into my 200Tdi Defender when the LEZ was being introduced in London, but in the end it turned out to be exempt because they consider the station wagon to be an estate car.

This car also inspired a song, considered to be the first 'rock' record: https://youtu.be/EkoKayUeSnI

I'd say it depends how many of them you'll use. If only one or two, then they're suddenly not so cheap. I have an old chain wrench which never fails to get the filter off, even if they're over-tight, in which case they get a bit squashed in the process. It's not the pleasantest tool to use because the chain sometimes flops around until you get it tight on the filter, Concerning the VW van with the locked door - would it be possible to operate the locking rods from outside using a 'slim jim', like a car thief might?

Such a nice interior - all the ones I went in had collapsed, threadbare driver's seats that had split along the stitching. Stained carpets and a wonky steering wheel too, usually.

Now I think about it, isn't it surprising that the Maxi was never offered with quad headlamps like the Allegro Equipe or the higher spec Princesses? Quad headlamps were massively desirable at the time and would bestow status on any shonky heap. Similarly, did they ever get electric windows? They were impossibly luxurious things in the '70s and early '80s. As a child, I remember attempting to wind the windows down really smoothly in my Dad's Citroen GS and pretending they were electric. How sad is that? Sounds like something out of the four Yorkshiremen sketch now!

I thought Maxis were rather fun to drive - I remember them being like a giant Mini, with a bus-like steering wheel and surprising levels of grip in corners. However, by the '80s when I got to drive them I don't remember there being too many around compared to stuff like Allegros and Marinas. I suspect their dull image combined with higher running costs and ferocious rust probably meant they got scrapped instead of lingering around in large numbers as bangers.

Hope you have plenty of patience, as I suspect using a saw like that might take a little while and test it rather severely. I have an electric reciprocating saw which is quite good for that kind of job because you can get hacksaw blades for it that are flexible and quite long. As long as you can get the blade into the space with a bit of pressure in the right direction, you just pull the trigger and wait for something to go clonk or the blade to jam and bend (either of which usually indicates some degree of success). Mine cost £60 or so, but I've had it years and it has come in useful for all kinds of jobs on the house and car that would be a proper pita without it.

If they're bolts rather than nuts, then nut splitters won't do the job - a sharp chisel and a big hammer would probably be a better choice, or (if there's sufficient access) even the world's cheapest angle grinder would make quick work of a M6 bolt. Grinders are useful and versatile (but dangerous) tools to have and well worth the money.

Do you mean a nut splitter, like these? The two sizes in a set of nut splitters seem to cover most sizes of nut that you encounter. The big one would manage a 17mm nut like you'd find on a M10 bolt, and the smaller one will make easy work of a 10mm nut. I've had decent results from a real cheapo set of nut splitters, and as they all look the same I suspect the difference between cheap sets and expensive ones is going to be in the hardness of the steel and therefore how long they last. I managed to blunt the bigger one in my set by abusing it (iirc I was trying to split the head of a hardened bolt I hadn't looked at properly) so if you're at all likely to do something like that I'd start with a cheap set and see how long they last.

Returning to the subject of Land Rover tyres: like Landy Mann, I also run Avon Rangemasters on my 110 and find them generally quite acceptable. (Unless it's icy, in which case they become very unacceptable indeed). Most importantly, they used to be a very economical choice because they last forever and there were usually lots on offer at shows like the Sodbury Sortout, where I used to budget about £120 for a set of newish takeoffs. However, I'd imagine that source has pretty much dried up now as the factory stopped fitting them several years before Defender production ended. Anyway, I've heard good things about the Insa Turbo Ranger. They're remoulds, but I once had a similar set of Colway AT remoulds in the same tread pattern (a rip-off of the BF Goodrich All-Terrain) and they worked very well indeed.

Or antifreeze residue, maybe?

Lloyds Motor Spares in North London are very good, not least for their late opening. Their branch on the Edgware Road in Burnt Oak stays open until 8pm most nights, and the Wembley branch ('Midnight Motors') stays open until 10pm, 364 nights a year, carries a huge range of parts and even has a good selection of decent quality tools for sale! That comes in pretty useful when you have a car in bits that is needed the following day. ETA: wuvvum's post above reminds me of the Wilco in Felixstowe, where I received amazingly helpful service and they went to a lot of trouble trying to find a supplier for an obscure tool I popped in to enquire about. I'd definitely go back there.

I get a lot of use out of my Bosch Ixo cordless screwdriver. It is surprisingly powerful and the battery lasts ages on a charge. Also, in the 'seldom comes out but jolly useful when you need it' category is my Clarke slide hammer. It's such a satisfying tool to use, but I'm sure I didn't pay as much for it as they're asking now.

Sounds like a good deal for someone - the mk3 Mondeo drives really well and in many ways I prefer my scruffy example to my (much smarter looking) mk4. Anyway, mine started missing recently and put the EML on. When I read the code it turned out to be a coil pack, which was £30 on ebay and about 15 minutes to fit.

I wonder what lives in that garage that is important enough to displace it from the warm and dry? Depending on who rules the roost in that house, I'd say it is either a Bugatti Royale or a washing machine and tumble dryer. My money is on the latter.

Well done for getting it off. I once removed a similar McGard locking bolt by drilling the head off - it was not a particularly easy job and took the best part of an aftenoon. Some top tips for aspiring wheelnut driller-offers: The little hole in the centre of the key makes it an ideal template for the pilot hole. Don't start drilling the key until you've used it to remove all the other locking bolts, which you can then measure to work out the required dimensions of the hole, thereby avoiding going too deep and knackering the hub. In my case I needed to buy a 13mm drillbit to sever the head of the nut. The outside of the locking nuts is hardened steel, which was slow going and blunted a few bits until I broke through it. By the time you reach this stage, you will be well sick of kneeling on your drive so pick a nice day to do it:

I have used this lot in the past. They were cheap and good, and judging by what was on their shelves they are unafraid of working on old or unusual stuff. A friend recently had them look at his Citroen Light 15 and came back singing their praises.