Six Cylinders Motoring Notes

[beko1987]

12 hours ago, Talbot said:

How far away is the nearest mains power that you could borrow* from the FOD?  I only ask, as I've welded on the end of about 600m of cable before now.. that's over 1/3 of a mile of cable (although it was 6mm2).  Had to turn up to the next voltage tapping as mains was down to about 200v at the welder, but it worked a treat.

If we all bought a 30m reel each would we make it from chez_6cyl to the fod over the fields inbetween? 

I'm sure the length would be fine... 

I get paid at 4pm so will make an attempt to buy my rear flexi's and some brake fluid and see if it comes before saturday

[Talbot]

27 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

If we all bought a 30m reel each would we make it from chez_6cyl to the fod over the fields inbetween? 

I'm sure the length would be fine... 

I get paid at 4pm so will make an attempt to buy my rear flexi's and some brake fluid and see if it comes before saturday

Later, I am going to have to do the volt-drop calc on that extension cable.

In the meantime, for your rear brakes, I have a coil of brake pipe, new ends, a tube cutter, brake pipe spanners and crows-foot sockets.  What I cannot currently find is my flaring tool.  I may be able to borrow one for the weekend, unless anyone else has one they can bring?

[beko1987]

I presume I'm still being too optimistic that it'll just crack off and be fine then? 

[chaseracer]

You ARE still talking about the brakes? 🤨

[Six-cylinder]

13 hours ago, Talbot said:

How far away is the nearest mains power that you could borrow* from the FOD?  I only ask, as I've welded on the end of about 600m of cable before now.. that's over 1/3 of a mile of cable (although it was 6mm2).  Had to turn up to the next voltage tapping as mains was down to about 200v at the welder, but it worked a treat.

The neighbour I am sure would help is 500m away, but the other side of the road.

I have looked at used welder/generator sets and they are expensive even second-hand.

[Six-cylinder]

44 minutes ago, Talbot said:

Later, I am going to have to do the volt-drop calc on that extension cable.

In the meantime, for your rear brakes, I have a coil of brake pipe, new ends, a tube cutter, brake pipe spanners and crows-foot sockets.  What I cannot currently find is my flaring tool.  I may be able to borrow one for the weekend, unless anyone else has one they can bring?

I have a brake flaring tool.

[beko1987]

17 minutes ago, chaseracer said:

You ARE still talking about the brakes? 🤨

Its the only thing that will give me motivation to do it... Otherwise itll be another year

[Andyrew]

1 hour ago, beko1987 said:

If we all bought a 30m reel each would we make it from chez_6cyl to the fod over the fields inbetween? 

I'm sure the length would be fine... 

I get paid at 4pm so will make an attempt to buy my rear flexi's and some brake fluid and see if it comes before saturday

In stock at work, 6 quid each inc vat.  Can give to chris this week.

[Cord Fourteener]

24 minutes ago, chaseracer said:

You ARE still talking about the brakes? 🤨

Progress is slowing.

 

 

 

 

 

I thank you, I'll be here all week 😅

[Talbot]

43 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

I presume I'm still being too optimistic that it'll just crack off and be fine then? 

Most likely, yes.

As is always the case with brakes or other parts prone to corrosion, if we have all the tools, parts and skillz available to fix the worst-case issues, then everything will be fine and they'll just change over with no issues.

If you only have a set of open-end spanners and are desperately in need of just changing the pipes quickly, they'll all round off, the hard-pipe ends will all twist off and the wheel cylinder bleed nipples will all shear.

[beko1987]

18 minutes ago, Andyrew said:

In stock at work, 6 quid each inc vat.  Can give to chris this week.

Yes please! Send me payment details. Can you chuck a bottle of dot4 in as well? 

[Andyrew]

35 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

Yes please! Send me payment details. Can you chuck a bottle of dot4 in as well? 

Yeah, 5 quid inc vat for a 1l bottle.

Anything else?

[beko1987]

19 minutes ago, Andyrew said:

Yeah, 5 quid inc vat for a 1l bottle.

Anything else?

Not for the brakes I dont think, I've got the discs and pads already (had them for almost a year now...)

Ive got a windback kit, by the sounds of it @Talbot will be bringing a mobile kwikfit and @chaseracer can supervise and laugh at us so we should be covered!

We're going to get under and realise that the testers idea of 'it's starting to perish m8' is different to ours but meh, it won't hurt. I've not looked to my shame, it could be terrible

[bobdisk]

2 hours ago, Talbot said:

Later, I am going to have to do the volt-drop calc on that extension cable.

In the meantime, for your rear brakes, I have a coil of brake pipe, new ends, a tube cutter, brake pipe spanners and crows-foot sockets.  What I cannot currently find is my flaring tool.  I may be able to borrow one for the weekend, unless anyone else has one they can bring?

I will bring mine, if I can find it!

[Talbot]

15 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

@Talbot will be bringing a mobile kwikfit

Kwikfit??  If I was Kwikfit, I'd tell you that you need all new brake pipes, all new brake discs and pads, 22L of brake fluid for bleeding, 2 new tyres, a steering alignment and a new back box.  All for the bargain* price of £1263.78

When in actual fact all you need is one flexi.  Next year.

[Mrs6C]

A brakefest! My aim is to get Dolly's brakes serviced over the weekend... might well tap you @Andyrew for some flexible hoses for that...

@bobdisk - what do you need welding?  If it's a quick and easy job and someone fancies bringing their kit along and having a go on it, then it could be done on the driveway at our home...

[bobdisk]

Just now, Mrs6C said:

A brakefest! My aim is to get Dolly's brakes serviced over the weekend... might well tap you @Andyrew for some flexible hoses for that...

@bobdisk - what do you need welding?  If it's a quick and easy job and someone fancies bringing their kit along and having a go on it, then it could be done on the driveway at our home...

2 things, most urgent is one shock mount has broken off the Kittens rear axle, rust I think, other needs checking,  Second, seat frame broken. 

[Mrs6C]

5 minutes ago, bobdisk said:

one shock mount has broken off the Kittens rear axle

Are you bringing it up on a trailer?

[wuvvum]

I drove my Mk3 Escort van all the way back from central France with a broken rear shock mount once.  That was the second silliest drive back from France I ever did, after the Saab 9000 Turbo which lost its brakes on the Paris périphérique and somehow still made it back to Norwich without crashing into anything.

 

(Wouldn't do it nowadays mind, this was 20 odd years ago when I was young and stupid(er).)

[Floatylight]

2 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

The neighbour I am sure would help is 500m away, but the other side of the road

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274804566405

[bobdisk]

30 minutes ago, Mrs6C said:

Are you bringing it up on a trailer?

No, driving. It is ok if I am careful.

[Six-cylinder]

4 minutes ago, Floatylight said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274804566405

The road has 44 tonner on it!

[Talbot]

4 hours ago, beko1987 said:

If we all bought a 30m reel each would we make it from chez_6cyl to the fod over the fields inbetween? 

I'm sure the length would be fine... 

Distance from chez_6cyl to the FOD:  Direct line: 1800m.

Assuming we can do direct line, that would be 60(!) 30m extensions plugged into each other.  Even if they are decent quality at 2.5mm copper, you wouldn't be able to put any significant load on it.  Even a lower-power kettle (2kw) would give you a massive volt drop, with only 550w available at the kettle, and 500w lost in the cable.

If we could do that in 10mm2 cable (like would supply an oven or a lower power electric shower, you'd still be looking at a volt drop to about 185v, meaning the kettle above would now be about 1300w and you'd lose 300w in the cable.  Better than above, but still not good.

Welding would be impossible.  Even at lower power, the moment you try to strike the arc, the available voltage would drop off, so your torch voltage would drop too, meaning the arc would probably go out.

... and 1800m of 10mm2 cable, at today's prices from screwfix is £4500.  Not allowing for any jointing, or connectors either end.  Or indeed the fact that the loop resistance would be sufficiently high that fault current would be too low, so a seperate grounding setup would be needed at the far end, probably costing a few hundred.

The best case we could hope for would be using 16mm2 cable from the neighbour 500m away.  That works out better, as the same kettle as above would be running at 1850w, and you'd lose 70w in the cable.  Quite a bit better, and welding *might* work on that, as the volt drop on arc strike would be entirely manageable.

However, 16mm2 cable is not generally available in twin-and-earth (screwfix don't sell it) and it would need to be in steel-wire-armour cable anyway, which is then about £3500.  We could possibly cheat and use 16mm green-and-yellow sheathed cable, which is available in longer lengths but that's still most of £2k to get those 500m.

I've been using a kettle as the load, as it's purely resistive, meaning the loads are easy to calculate.  In reality, we can easily use a kettle on a small generator at the FOD, as a generator can ramp up to run a resistive load quite happily.  What this does represent is the instant volt drop between the mig wire about to contact the work, and the moment that it does.

So, to weld at the FOD we need about £3k's worth of electrical installation, a Diesel welder or a fairly large inverter and battery pack (plus some way of keeping that battery pack charged be that either a generator or a significant solar array.)

Edit:  It's also worth noting that most diesel welders are arc welders ONLY, and I suspect they simply have a nice big smoothing capacitor in them to allow the engine to ramp up in time and then maintain the (fairly stable) arc from a welding rod to the workpiece.  I've never seen a diesel mig welder.  Not even sure if it's possible to have that combination.

[Mrs6C]

Welding at the house sounds like a better plan, if someone is willing to do it. Sounds though like it could be more complicated to do (the word 'rust' having been mentioned) than a quick job though. Perhaps if you trailered it up, we could assess and prepare it for welding (clean up the metal, maybe fabricate a new piece) then if it turns out to be more complicated to fix than the weekend and willing volunteers feel able to accommodate, you can trail it home and have someone local do the work at your leisure, with the preparation at least having been done?

[bobdisk]

1 hour ago, Mrs6C said:

Welding at the house sounds like a better plan, if someone is willing to do it. Sounds though like it could be more complicated to do (the word 'rust' having been mentioned) than a quick job though. Perhaps if you trailered it up, we could assess and prepare it for welding (clean up the metal, maybe fabricate a new piece) then if it turns out to be more complicated to fix than the weekend and willing volunteers feel able to accommodate, you can trail it home and have someone local do the work at your leisure, with the preparation at least having been done?

There is a place near me that can do it, they have a lift, which will be better than ramps, so I will go and see what they say. I will also contact the Kitten side of the Reliant register to see if its a usual thing, and what they do. 

 

[Mrs6C]

3 minutes ago, bobdisk said:

I will go and see what they say

Good idea! Having  a suitably equipped workshop on hand should make it easier and quicker to resolve the problem.

[Six-cylinder]

On 5/12/2021 at 7:31 PM, Floatylight said:

Been tootling round in @Six-cylinders 306 convertible and doing a bit of tinkering.

Todays tinkering abs light, thought I'd start with the front sensors and the problem was immediately obvious..

https://photos.app.goo.gl/YLznQsF6Cq9YFL2d9

Sorting this for @Six-cylinderis a bit beyond my capabilities, anyone localish (Stafford) a willing volunteer if I get the bit? Alternatively it's going to be a garage job.

I have ordered a new CV joint with rotor through @Andyrew

[plasticvandan]

It is a fairly common thing on the kitten +now they are knocking on a bit) a friend had both his snap after loaning rh car to his nephew for a few weeks... I have welded on a new handbrake cable mount to the axle in one of mine,indeed was the first time I ever welded,I bought a gasless.mig just for that job and to teach me how to do it.i certainly wouldn't advise driving it any distance like that.as access is easy on a ramp I would get a local mechanic to do it personally.

[bobdisk]

Pics of the broken mount, and one of the other, still ok.  Both handbrake cable pivots looks a bit rough as well.  Until I find what professionals might say, I will probably remove it for sale, until I am satisfied with it.  I also need another drivers seat. It has 2 passenger seats, the one in the drivers place broke.

 

 

 

[Floatylight]

1 hour ago, Six-cylinder said:

I have ordered a new CV joint with rotor through @Andyrew

Great, planning to bring it back on Saturday..