The new news 24 thread

[Jim Bell]

CV boot + drop link = Pass.

 

Treated it to a service even though it wasnt really due a one.

[scruff]

Bought another lorry today, Mitsubishi Fuso Canter with a 15ft bed, half the miles of my Merc, better winch, electric windows, heated mirrors (!) less (virtually no) rust, doors that shut nicely instead of clang, slightly less payload but it was £1000 cheaper than the Sprinter was. It drives A1, even has an exhaust brake!! It's a 2000 so a nice mechanical pump on the engine.

 

The Merc has been good, but a right bastard lately, think the lad I spoke to who said "the electrics are shit" was talking about mine in particular. Plus I think it's got HGF as well as a disco dancing engine management light, and the heater blower has packed up so it's like driving the friggin Land Rover without the grin factor. I've got work coming out of my arse so can't really lose a week and £?£? getting it mended. Someone's offered £3000 as it is which kind of sounds OK actually, let's see if it actually happens. 

[Jim Bell]

This might be one for the stupid question thread, but whats an exhaust brake?!

[fordperv]

its a simple way of slowing a diesel engine by blocking off the exhaust flow, causing the gas to be compressed in the cylinders which in turns slows the engine

 

wikis explaination

 

An exhaust brake is a means of slowing a diesel engine by closing off the exhaust path from the engine, causing the exhaust gases to be compressed in the exhaust manifold, and in the cylinder. Since the exhaust is being compressed, and there is no fuel being applied, the engine works backwards, slowing down the vehicle. The amount of negative torque generated is usually directly proportional to the back pressure of the engine.

Since diesel engines lack a throttle valve on the intake manifold, there is no intake vacuum when the engine is not using fuel. The intake vacuum creates the drag effect felt in gasoline engines when going down a hill with the throttle closed.

Exhaust brakes are manufactured by many companies, including competitors Pacbrake and Jacobs. The brakes vary in design, but essentially operate as described above. More advanced exhaust brakes have exhaust pressure modulation (EPM) that controls the back pressure which in turn improves the braking performance across a range of engine speeds.

[scruff]

Yes I think on the Fuso it's just a flap in the exhaust manifold.

[twosmoke300]

Basic ones just shut a flap in the exhaust to increase engine braking by turning the engine into a compressor.

The Jacobs (Jake) brake is much more complicated and moves the engine valves to maximise retardation.

Some lorries / busses also use electric retarders on the driveline.

[twosmoke300]

Ahh too slow

[wackywacerwill]

Tonight I have approx 100ft of vehicles parked outside the flat, this excludes the roughly 30ft of autoshite locked up in the garages and the Renault left at work. Luckily 25ft of this is caravan, 25ft trailer and another 25ft has it's tax disc paid by my work.

[dollywobbler]

That Wiki seems to suggest that diesels are incapable of generating engine braking - something I've heard someone say before. Clearly there must be something going on or diesels wouldn't slow down like they do. Indeed, they have great engine braking without having one of those exhaust valve things. So what's that about?

 

The Iveco 7.5tonner we moved house had an exhaust brake. Very noticable when it kicked in with that typical chudder noise thing.

[Jim Bell]

Every day is a school day.

[Ghosty]

Exhaust brake = the flappy thing on the top/end of tractor exhausts

[skattrd]

The exhaust/turbo manifold I had made in Malaysia for the Storia has arrived in the UK. It does appear that it has been made with the wrong turbo inlet flange on it, despite me being specific about the one I wanted. I now have to see about getting a new flange made then welded on to the manifold. I'm hoping my local garage (B-I-L) can do some sort of bodgery with the new flange, but I don't think he welds stainless. I've all ready emailed a couple of local fabricators about making the flange and I'll be trying turbo technics tomorrow.

[oman5]

Electronic retarders are not seen much on trucks anymore. it was an electromagnet on the propshaft. 

Jake brakes are bloody brilliant- its a decompression brake usually-but not exclusively- only seen on cummins engines, and opens exhaust valves to release compression which would otherwise push the piston back down. They work brilliantly, sadly gone from our shores now with the death of ERF and Foden.

[wuvvum]

its a decompression brake usually-but not exclusively- only seen on cummins engines, and opens exhaust valves to release compression which would otherwise push the piston back down.

 

Presumably it must be set up to only open the exhaust valves on the down stroke of the piston?  If the exhaust valves are open all the time there wouldn't be any compression to release. 

 

[vulgalour]

After much nagging I've set up a Facebook for my work but now I've done that I'm not sure I want to use it at all.  I've heard variations of "Oh, Facebook is the internet" enough times for me to think people think there's a market on there for me to access I could be missing out on.

 

Now, it might just be my general paranoia, but does anyone else regard it as pretty scary how much information FB want you to put in?  Life events, work history, location, telephone and e-mail details, family, friends... it's like they want me to put my entire life story into their system.

 

Then there's the concern that everything appears to be connected to FB, so how do I keep it out?  FB's habit of automatically linking to things if you want it to or not is quite worrying, it was a bit of a battle to get it not to think my Photobucket account was connected to my brother's FB and even now it occasionally reverts my avatar on Photobucket to his FB avatar for reasons I still can't fathom.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

You don't have to put accurate stuff in Facebook, just tell them any old shiz. Defo don't give them your phone number.

[Richard]

Tell it the minimum you can get away with, setup an email address just for Facebook, use a different browser and go through the privacy settings with a fine tooth comb.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Heavy

[Richard]

Can't argue with any of that, and another thing has occurred to me. Using a corporate template, especially one as badly designed as Facebook, probably isn't the best advert for a creative service anyway.

[scruff]

Have you got a website Volgs?? Just use Facebook as a free advert and spam your page with links to your actual website. 

[scruff]

Presumably it must be set up to only open the exhaust valves on the down stroke of the piston?  If the exhaust valves are open all the time there wouldn't be any compression to release. 

 

That's it, there's a extra lobe on the cam operating a extra exhaust valve with a telescopic stem which is locked up when the brake switch is "on". Older stuff has just the one, you can get at least a 3 stage jake brake as well where you can choose how many cylinders the brake operates on. 

[cort16]

I had a slightly embarressing moment when I put a fake birthday into Facebook then got lots of happy birthday messages from "friends" about 3 months before it was my actual birthday.

More embarrasing for them than me really I suppose.

[Richard]

I think it was my fake birthday last week.

[oman5]

Presumably it must be set up to only open the exhaust valves on the down stroke of the piston?  If the exhaust valves are open all the time there wouldn't be any compression to release. 

 

correct. It's this that produces the loud machine gun like chuffing as the compression builds and is released.

[dollywobbler]

Disco Ebayer has now responded after I opened a dispute. He's not exactly rushing to provide a deposit. I have not closed the case.

 

Also, I performed and oil and filter change on the 2CV today. Easy! Er, no. The filter put up one hell of a fight and I can only assume I must have failed to sufficiently lube the seal last time (a year ago). Had to pour the drained oil back in, drive to a local garage and was then able to borrow a HUGE truck-size strap wrench. That did the job, once I'd jacked the car up to get sufficient room beneath it. 

 

The filter looked like this in the end.

 

Then I discovered that I've run out of spark plugs. Game over for today.

[Lankytim]

Knock a screwdriver through it innit.

[dollywobbler]

I'm not convinced that would have worked. Would probably have just ended up wrecking the filter, but leaving the head attached to the engine or something. Big Wrench did the trick and also didn't get oil everywhere.

[trigger]

It's amazing how many of my Facebook contacts were born on the same day, on the 1st of January I spend an hour wishing them all birthday greetings.

[saucedoctor]

It's amazing how many of my FB contacts are aged under 40 on there, yet I've been to quite a few 40th birthday bashes, in some cases years ago.

[derskine]

DW

 

Have you got one of these? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DRAPER-77592-OIL-FILTER-REMOVAL-TOOL-CHAIN-WRENCH-1-2-130MM-CAPACITY-/180747964329?pt=UK_Hand_Tools_Equipment&hash=item2a156b0fa9 I stick it on a massive breaker bar and it undoes any oil filter, its also good for removing round stuff when you don't have a bike enough pipe wrench.