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_Chris_

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Everything posted by _Chris_

  1. This applies regardless, including cars up to 3 years old which have never had an MOT. Some of mine had done over 120K miles in that time. A car without an MOT may give an insurance company a chance to wriggle out, however this isn't the case now. The emails I've had from insurers all state that the insurance industry are well aware of the situation and so no need to notify them that your vehicle is in an extended period, however they also point out your responsibility to keep the vehcle in a roadworthy state. I've never come across an insurance company carrying out MOT style checks as part of the claim procedure, other than the obvious such as tyres, but then no one I know has had an accident caused by mechanical failure.
  2. The government run MOT centres are closed. Normal garages are allowed to function, and if the computers administering the MOT's are still running I guess they can carry out MOT's. Useful to know as I may want to get one of my GT4's MOT'd and able to go on the road. I have checked the government MOT status site for my camper which originally expired on 18th April and it's now listed at 18th Oct. Are you a politician ?
  3. I'm not sure what questions it raises ? MOT facilities ahve been shut and existing MOT's expiring after April 1st (presumably until facilities re-instated) had their expiry dates extended by 6 months.
  4. Waxoyl is soft and will soon be blasted off exterior parts - it is better suited to cavities and stopping rot coming through from inside. Be very wary of underseal of any sort. If it's just sprayed on over the top of whatever's there then it will seal in dirt, moisture and existing surface rust and accellerate the rusting process. Preparation is critical and isn't fast as it includes removing all dirt and loose paint (many quick turnround places use a steam cleaner or jet wash) Then needs to be left long enough to dry in all the fiddly bits - this ideally means days / weeks in a warm dry place. Then any surface rust needs treating, then a layer of red oxide then finally the underseal. Shortcutting any of this will probably lead to accellerated rusting, especially in the seams - the most critical part to strength.
  5. Sounds most likely wheel bearings. Usually - but not always - they get louder under increased load going round a corner. If you find it gets louder on right hand bends and goes quiet on left, then it's probably a left hand wheel bearing. Wheel bearings are checked in MOT but only for play and for noise when spinning by hand with no load - so only a completely shot one will fail. CV joint unlikely to be a whine, they usually click on full lock as the first symptom. I have known tyres sound just like bad wheel bearings - I was using up an old set that came with a car, and while on a long run started getting wheel bearing noises from the back getting rapidly worse. I drove gently back home assuming it was a bearing, but when I took the wheel off to investigate the inner tyre sidewall was massively deformed. A spare set of wheels / tyres and the car was fine.
  6. I heard of this in Diesel engines to help lubricate the pump & injectors, bearing in mind modern clean burning fuels tend to be less lubricating. I have done it myself in a rattly high milage clio diesel which became much less rattly as a result, so I wouldn't hesitate to do it again on engines that seem to benefit. Diesels have a very different type of fuel pump and injector though, running at much much higher pressures and built to much closer tolerances. I'm really not sure that petrol engines would warrent this. As far as octane goes, engine oil certainly makes engines MORE prone to detonation. 2 stroke oil, I have no idea but I wouldn't expect to make it better.
  7. Unless in a racing environment where outright grip is key to winning then the key is to use something predictable and progressive. There's a massive mis-conception fuelled by the tyre adverts that more grip is safer. This does indeed apply to most people who drive way inside grip limits - indeed with no concept of how far they can push it - except when something unexpected happens and they hit the brakes hard. For an enthusiast who enjoys reaching and exceeding grip limits, then it's important that they don't have tyres that just give up & let go completely at the slightest damp patch or even when limits are reached. The tyres I usually see reccomended on forums are the ones with a solid feel as they inspire confidence. This usually comes from stiff sidewalls and harder rubber - which is generally the formula for non-progressive and non-predictable. Japenese tyres are usually the worst as they are aimed at japenese climate. The winter tyres I've tried so far - both sets came with cars I bought - have all been lethat. Very little grip on dry tarmac, like ice on wet. It comes to something when you can't stop from 60MPH in 2-300 yards when a deer runs out in front. I still have the tyres to put on the back for autotests, but they'll never go on the road again..
  8. For the old folks among us - post 2 plus
  9. Noise is a problem to me when cars/bikes go screaming past my window at full revs at 3 in the morning - it's a 30 limit residential area with people asleep FFS. Sadly the irresponsibility of a few ruins it for the many like me who keep it quiet round houses at night.
  10. The simple answer will be drop the clutch, switch off the engine and coast past - with no brakes or steering!!
  11. For anyone that has visited Zermatt where only electric vehicles are allowed - this is the future of motoring:
  12. p.s. This is the place mine came from http://www.mobileweldingsupplies.co.uk/used-equipment https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/plonknplonker999
  13. The best advice is to buy good quality secondhand for the same price as cheap crap new. My current welder is an old, battered murex 3 phase welder which cost me £250 on ebay and it's far far better than the £650 one I was talked into buying a few years back. Same advice goes for pretty much any power tool except batteries.
  14. The regulations: Rear must be equal or wider. Rear must be equal or lower profile. It's all about stopping the back being less grippy or more squidgy than the front. Not sure how much is checked in the MOT, I suspect both of the above.
  15. Be careful with solder joints that they are not subjected to any vibration as soldering makes wire brittle. You can get adhesive lined shrink sleeving specifically designed for solder splices which goes pretty rigid once shrunk to keep the stress away from the joint. This will, of course, increase the stress in the connector itself. As a general rule, connections from a wire to a fixed item should br crimped. Wire splices or items which are in the loom are better soldered. This assumes good quality crimps.
  16. As above, you need to measure drop in the Earth return as well as the positive feed. Ideally measure the voltage across the bulb at the bulb, and the voltage across the battery - or better still on the alternator as this is the source of all electrical power when the engine is running. Measure from the large output terminal on the back to alternator body. The voltage drops come from cable resistance (which doesn't usually deteriorate with age), resistance from connections (which is usually the worst deterioration with corrosion - particularly the Earths as these go through the steel body) and resistance from the fuse(s) and switch or relay contacts. If you do run new cabling, use well over-rated cable and components (apart from fuse) as these will have a lower resistance. Minimise the number of connectors used and use good quality gold plated ones. Make sure the fuse is at the battery end of the cabling, and ensure the wire doesn't run over any sharp edges, hot items, or near moving parts. For a given resistance, power is proportional to voltage squared, This is why a small drop makes a big difference.
  17. There's nothing fundamental about Ethanol that will require complete new engines, especially at 10%. It can be more corrosive, although fuel suppliers should add corrosion inhibitors to counter this. Worst case, it may require new fuel lines and maybe some other fuel system components. Not a complete engine. It has a higher RON so no need for fundamental engine changes to avoid detonation. While blended with petrol it is likely this will replace other RON boosters and overall RON will remain the same. The most likely problem is that it needs a slightly richer mixture. If the fuel system can't accommodate this automatically it may require some aftermarket changes, the simplest being an adjustable fuel pressure regulator to increase pressure slightly. On the other hand, Photosynthesis which is fundamental to all vegetation growing converts CO2 to Oxygen. Like most things in nature, there is an equilibrium with plants converting light, water and CO2 to Oxygen and food, then Animals consuming the food and oxygen and converting back to CO2. Reduction in vegitation is just as harmful as production of CO2. They should tax chainsaws as heavily as cars.
  18. Ethanol has a higher RON so detonation shouldn't be an issue. It also requires more fuel/air ratio for correct mixture (stoich AFR 9% pure ethanol, 14.7% petrol 14.1%E10). When running open loop,this will result in running slightly weaker. Closed loop, it should be within the range allowed for automatic adjustment by the ECU. The biggest danger is on turbo cars which are mapped with very little safety margin. Standard mapping on the GT4 is pretty rich when open loop anyway so it's only likely to be modified ones with tweaks to weaken the on-boost mixture. (ECU's / adjustable FPR etc.). I accidentally filled up with some in France a few years back on a GT4 with aftermarket ECU. I was running open loop and on the weak side for the cruising cells for ecconomy. It basically felt very flat and misfired a bit on some throttle settngs. This went away when I increased the master fuel setting a little. When I filled up again I was able to drop it back..
  19. AS far as I'm aware, the only self learning on the later ECU's is idle RPM and knock retard. You are referring to open / close loop mixture control. On the GT4's it only goes to close loop for idle and cruise, I suspect the same may be true on the N/A versions as there are power gains from running richer on full throttle and the regulations of the time only required accurate mixture at idle and light throttle. I presume you are thinking of trying to run weaker on cruise to gain a wee bit of ecconomy ?
  20. Good to see a car with some history being looked after, Have a good holiday.
  21. Were those in a marine engine from a shipwreck ? I suspect they were fitted in 2005 in the Ford factory.
  22. Don't use WD40 as it will make rubber seals swell up and eventually disintegrate. You can get proper lock spray, or find a penetrating oil that is rubber safe.
  23. The laws are very complex regarding taking items to repay debts, and contravening these can be a criminal offence, or at the very least can lead to a large compensation claim. Effectively any items taken that aren't owned by the debtor are stolen property, this may even apply to goods taken without court documentation. Bear in mind that a company and the company owner is not one and the same.
  24. There are many types of LED. An old fashioned pure LED would probably go pop with the current passed by a relay coil, but nowadays many leds come with series resistors (which would stop the relay pulling in) or high power/high brightness which would probably work in the diagram shown. The safest bet is to get an LED rated for 14V (12V) or an old fashioned led plus a series 1K ish resistor and wire in paralell with the relay coil. As far as permanent power, you may have wired to the normally closed contact, and then not have sufficient current topull in the relay. It is also possible that the relay is wired correctly but has insufficient current for the load and the contact has welded together. Amplifiers usually have large capacitors which pull a very high current for a short time at power on, this is renowned for weldingrelay contacts. Another safety issue is that you should have a fuse next to the battery with a rating no higher than the wiring it is feeding. i.e. if you have used 50A wire, then the fuse should be rated 50A or less. This is so that if you get a short in the wiring or any other sort of overload, the fuse will blow before the wire catches fire. You can use lower rated fuses in the fusebox and then run thinner wires from there.
  25. If it wasn't limited to celicas, I could mention the copper pipe over the snapped gearstick on my old escort. It got me home, and worked so well I didn't rush to do the job properly. The cops weren't impressed when they pulled me over one day though.
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