Ask a Shiter

[Richard]

Anyone know where I can get stuff to er, stuff the seat on my Viano? It's gone a bit flat on one side. No Heydrich jokes, please

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

I'm not sure what a Viano is but if it's new enough you could try the dealer. I had to buy a new seat base for the Escort, a bit pricey but it was a proper fix.

[320touring]

I'm not really looking to a create an OMG 100 MPG daily driver, it's more of a project idea so refinement and pleasure of driving isn't high on the list of priorities. In that case yes, the extra 10 MPG is a huge advantage.

Driving style is key at first-put time in on that before starting to mod the car(ok, you can air the tyres up a little!)

 

My polo returned 53.84mpg on the return trip to get my brothers daimler off cavcraft.

 

Pegged at 70 all the way-not bad for a 1.9 n/a diesel.

 

I reckonbif i'd sat at 60 i'd have made 57-58

[castros_bro]

I do the same but I only started a year ago so it's not a particularly large spreadsheet yet. January 29th 2014 to January 3rd 2015 has seen me average exactly 50 MPG (50.003 to be precise, 0.003 of a mile being equivalent to 4.8 meters!). Suzuki say I should get 53 MPG on a combined cycle but I always drive with my headlights on which apparently decreases MPG by about 6% or -3 MPG in my case.

 

How have you found 106's as day-to-day transport? Reliable, cheap parts, comfort etc?

 

Here is the EX-Rusty_Rocket 106 diesel and it is a very useable car. 1000miles of France, Spain and Portugal where it was then used as a builders van till I came back.  Now waiting for the trip to be done again in a couple of weeks time. I'm 6 foot 2 and find it has an acceptable level of comfort for 10 hour driving stints, parts easy to get, cheap and reliable. I also own an AX 1.5 diesel, which I used to commute 120 miles a day but someone has now on "loan" and ZX 1.9 diesel which is a mobile garden shed.

[andy18s]

It's probably been asked before (and I could JFGI, but where's the fun in that?), but if I panelled inside a van to camper it: is there any reason why I couldn't/shouldn't fill the gap between plywood and metal with expanding foam?

Sounds like the obvious way to insulate. Sounds too easy though.

Check how hot the foam gets as it goes off

I've heard of some getting hot enough to warp the flimsy and unbraced panels that a van usually has.

Plus in the long term any condensation will find its way to the cold outer skin.loads of foam could make things a bit pongy

[DS20]

The roads were dry yesterday evening, it didn't rain overnight, the roads were SOAKING wet this morning. How does this happen? The pavements were dry. I suspect it has something to do with the gritting, but I don't know enough about the science / chemistry to know why this would happen. It irritates me.

[steve_earwig]

Maybe it's the salt drawing the moisture out of the air, osmosis or similar.

 

The high road here had a river running down it the other day, I thought maybe it had rained heavily in town while we got nothing just a couple of miles away (it does happen). Burst water main perhaps? No, they were draining out the skating rink up by the main square, they've obviously had their quota of little kids with snapped ankles for the year.

[Station]

Looking at this website:

 

http://www.aircrashsites-scotland.co.uk/canberra_c-t-sagairt-mor01.htm

 

Are there really crash sites with wreckage remaining in the UK?

 

My thoughts are why pikeys haven't tried to nick the lot, or for investigation purposes - surely they wouldn't leave the lot there (this page is one of many).

[Craig the Princess]

Does Brasso really remove scratches in car paint? Out neighbour farmer told me this when he heard of the Metro wing damage.

[steve_earwig]

Well yes, Brasso is just a very coarse abrasive. Think of t-cut on drugs, which you'll have to use afterwards to take the scratches the Brasso will make out. If there's any paint left...

Looking at this website:

 

http://www.aircrashsites-scotland.co.uk/canberra_c-t-sagairt-mor01.htm

 

Are there really crash sites with wreckage remaining in the UK?

 

My thoughts are why pikeys haven't tried to nick the lot, or for investigation purposes - surely they wouldn't leave the lot there (this page is one of many).

The dids probably would have the lot if they could get a Transit to it, I think the problem with recovering wreckage is it's all on mountains etc. and hard to get to.

[dave21478]

Before I became a fat, lazy cunt I did a fair bit of hiking and climbing and stuff. I remember visiting the site of a bomber wreck in Scotland.....I completely cant remember even the vaguest details of where it was or what the plane was.

There was a little granite memorial nearby with the details. As for the wreckage, just a few alloy struts poking up out of the ground could be seen....nothing much else.

 

 

Edit - looking at this site - there are loads of them. I cant remember which I saw....might have been the Avro Ansen at Breamar.

http://www.aircrashsites-scotland.co.uk/anson_b-macdui.htm

[Andrew353w]

Before I became a fat, lazy cunt I did a fair bit of hiking and climbing and stuff. I remember visiting the site of a bomber wreck in Scotland.....I completely cant remember even the vaguest details of where it was or what the plane was.

There was a little granite memorial nearby with the details. As for the wreckage, just a few alloy struts poking up out of the ground could be seen....nothing much else.

Wasn't that the memorial to a WW2 flight that crashed with the Duke Of Kent? He had been doing something "a bit secret" and was piloting the plane when it crashed. No doubt I've made a huge mistake but I also think the crash was featured on a "Yesterday" programme a week or so ago.

[dave21478]

I couldnt say for certain TBH - it was knocking on for 20 years ago!

[Craig the Princess]

Well yes, Brasso is just a very coarse abrasive. Think of t-cut on drugs, which you'll have to use afterwards to take the scratches the Brasso will make out. If there's any paint left...

 

 

Bugger, will re-try the T-cut then.

[mat_the_cat]

Maybe it's the salt drawing the moisture out of the air, osmosis or similar.

 

Yes, the salt is very hygroscopic,so any moisture around will be absorbed by it. Meaning that in situations where condensation would not form on roads etc, gritting actually makes it more slippery by making the road surface all damp and greasy. As well as making our cars rusty(er)

[castros_bro]

I'm from Essex so how/where in the whole of Euroland or East Anglia can I find a course or college or someone inna shed to teach me (even the basics of)  TIG welding? I've done some MMA/stick, mig, gas and fishing for barracuda so can plug the welder into the mains and connect some gas but canna find any practical stuff.

[Minimad5]

I'm from Essex so how/where in the whole of Euroland or East Anglia can I find a course or college or someone inna shed to teach me (even the basics of)  TIG welding? I've done some MMA/stick, mig, gas and fishing for barracuda so can plug the welder into the mains and connect some gas but canna find any practical stuff.

If you have done MMA and Mig, you'll find Tig a piece of piss, no splatter (unless welding over rust or sh*t) ... but nice and localised heat / weld pool.

 

Sorry that didn't answer your question, but have you tried googling East Anglia colleges ?

[M'coli]

Does anyone know how to tweak an injection system with a lambda probe into running slightly lean, or any websites that will tell me how (I've googled it but haven't found the right combination of keywords).  It's the old single-point system on the Pug 106.

[SamR380]

I don't know the particulars of that injection system, but the trick is to sneak a bit of extra air into the inlet without the computer or metering equipment noticing.

 

The system will measure the air going into the engine in one way or another and squirt in what it thinks its the correct amount of fuel to match that amount of air.

 

Remembering that the engine will only pull in a set amount of air at any instance, allowing some of that air to come in unmetered will reduce the amount of air that the system measures entering the engine. If the system thinks there's less air, it will squirt less fuel. In reality the engine has the same amount of air as before, just the system doesn't know it. Less fuel, same air, lower afr, leaner mix.*

 

*in theory.

[steve_earwig]

Does that mean drill a hole in the inlet manifold somewhere? It'd probably be a lot easier than fiddling with maps etc.

 

Are you after a set of Pug pistons with holes in them?

[spike60]

Doesn't the lambda probe alter the amount of fuel injected according to the CO level it meters? So it would just richen the mixture if it was lean because of extra air?

[twosmoke300]

Yes, the oxygen sensor will just compensate and it will bring the eng mgt light on with a fuel trim fault code.

[Asimo]

Two good articles about oxygen sensors and what they do in an engine management system.

 

http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.html?A=110624

 

http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.html?&A=110625

 

[twosmoke300]

You need to trick the oxygen sensor into reading slightly richer than it is . problem is that the ecu monitors it very closely and will throw a code if its not responding as it should. This will drop it back to its standard map .

You may be able to get it remapped to get over it

[willswitchengage]

Is it possible to cycle/push a bike across the Runcorn bridge?

[Lacquer Peel]

We have a fairly new Mercedes Sprinter at work, it's only done 7000 miles and has lots of niggles already, particularly electrical.

The most annoying niggle is the engine temperature plummeting when running at idle, is this normal for a modern diesel? Surely it should hit running temperature and stay there. Is the thermostat gubbed?

Fucking annoying when you're trying to get a heat on breaks from WEATHERMAGEDDON.

[Matt]

How much do you reckon a small bonnet is worth in scrap metal and how much do you think a breakers yard would charge for one?

[M'coli]

RE: Lambda - remapping's a last-resort possibility, but I was thinking that there must be a diy way of tickling it without the ECU throwing a wobbly, at least for long enough to get it through the emissions test later on this year...

I'll have a read and a think.

[twosmoke300]

Is that why you want it to run leaner ? To pass the mot ?

[spike60]

Rather than re-mapping won't it be easier and cheaper just to fix the fault that makes it run rich? Temp sender or similar?

[cort16]

My modern merc c class did that temp thing it was well weird.