ahebron

I used my sand blaster cabinet for the first time in a long time recently to clean up the headlight bowls for my Vitesse. The frustrating thing with the small benchtop machines is the sand line doesn't always pick the sand from the bottom of the machine. I went to youtube and found a bloke who had set up a benchtop and portable sandblaster to work together. Basically he fed the cabinet sand from the portable pot so no sand started out in the cabinet. I went to my local Bunnings and into the plumbing fittings to get some galv fittings. I ended up with a 20mm female right angle, a 20mm x 32mm nipple, 20-15mm reducer and a lock nut. The photos should tell it all but I drilled a hole in the side of the cabinet next to the airline. I turned a press fit reduced for inside the 20mm nipple to fit the hose inside and used the bench vise to press these together. Poke the nipple through the hole and using a nylon spacer I turned wind on the 90 degree fitting with the reducer in the downward pointing section. Fit a length of clear 20mm hose over the 15mm reducer and this goes into the bucket of blasting media on the floor. Connect the old sand pickup hose to the pressfit reducer inside the cabinet. Turn on the compressor and vacuum to keep the dust down and we are blasting. After using it to blast a few items I made a reducer to go into the pickup end of the media hose but have yet to try it. So far the only draw back is I have to empty the media that has been used back into the bucket, I use an old baked bean tin.

First time I tried it was horrid. I had watched all the youtube I could and thought hey I am welding god so lets do it. Welds looked like birds droppings, tungsten kept sticking and everything was getting hot including myself. The biggest cockup I made was I had the earth clamp and torch plugged into the wrong terminals thinking mig I had earth - and torch + but as we all know tig is earth + torch - That made me think maybe I am not that much a welding god but more a welding dog. But it made me think everytime I weld that I have the settings correct including making sure I set the pedal max and min (I have a rubber band around both knobs that keep min minimum and max maximum so it is all in the pedal). Tig is now my go to welder these days as it is so easy to use and setup. Everytime I weld I am learning and appreciating those who can do it properly.

Imagine the belt squeal on a Herald when that switched in.

How about fitting it on the nose of the diff. No losses going through the drive train, could be used when in neutral for stealth mode. Or how about an electric motor/overdrive combination. That is the the wrong attitude, how do you find out about things if you do not do stuff you do not know about. You either survive and learn from what you did or you don't. And here is a link to a 12 volt electric blower .https://duryeatechnologies.com/duryea-electric-supercharger/

The angle of the belt makes it look like it is fixed to the roof so the Hamster is ok for a bit longer.

Are expensive and often specific to the car. But you can often remove the rubber blade part and replace it with one from the old type wipers like on our Triumphs. I recently did this to my parents Freelander 2 by taking the end off the blade and pulling the old rubber out and sliding in a rubber removed from an old type wiper. On my Amarok I slid the original rubber back a bit till it slid out of the gap for removing the rubber then fed the replacement in. That saved me NZ$90

Used to do the same thing here in the 70s. Nail box for a seat with one side removed and mainly feet doing the steering, we saved rope for proper wheel trolleys. Like in OZ out pavements were concrete with a concrete gutter that I managed to slice my knee open on. Tarmac roads no good for ball bearing trolleys as they put chip in them.

Thanks for al the replies, looksm like my memory is still ok🤪 I do wonder where the retractable seat belt top fixing is in the car in the photo that Gary posted or are they just hooked out of the way

Hi Gary I am pretty sure they added that after I requested it.

I have a feeling I have asked this question before but cant remember the answer if there was one. Did the Vitesse 6 Saloon have roof lining fabric around the windscreen inside the car? Convertibles didn't. When I ordered my new roof lining from Newton I asked them to also supply enough spare material to go around the screen and up the door pillars. And talking about door pillars what was on the B pillars of the Vitesse 6 saloon. I have tried to find photos of both of these but not succeeded. But I seem to recall a youtube video that I paused. Thanks Adrian

Especially for modern lithium batteries.

29 degrees C in my Eastbourne. Had a lovely dip in the harbour, the southerly gives it a nice bite. No worries about Tsunamis

Crikey they probably need a suburb rather than a house For many years we had Sulphur Crested Cockatoos living in the bush on the hills behind but they have died out or been culled. Someone on one of the farms let some pets go when they got too much and they bred.

5 million people living on the most isolated temperate land mass in the world in a country of similar size to the UK has it advantages and disadvantages. For soldering I use mains powered and currently have a solder station with adjustable temperature control for the iron and airgun which can do surface solder but I mainly use it for heatshrink. Made in China and replace when it goes bang.

Dont have that problem here. I use the heatpump to cool the house at night so we can sleep but thats only about 5 days a year when it gets uncomfortable in the 20s. The other 20 days it gets used as a heat source in winter. When the big quake happens keeping cool or warm will be the least of our worries if we survive I always thought they should put the vaccine in the toilet paper. Still ok this side of the ditch but we are not eagerly awaiting its arrival.

Whats going on here? Peter Lewis mentions a Parrot House back in early December and no one remarks! Surely it deserves at least on dead parrot joke reference. And for earthquake preparedness we have 3 Honda EU2 inverter generators that I can link together for power and 400 liters of water tanks. Community watertank which holds many thousands of litres is at the school just round the corner

I have owned and used several different gas soldering irons over the years. They have all started out great but time spent in the tool box even in the supplied container and they have all failed. I think the Dremel ones have lasted the best. Maybe it is me. Bought the wire and inline fuse to make my own headlight relay control, 2 x30m 30a cable and an in line weather proof fuse plus postage $NZ142. Car electrics is expensive! I am a mains sparky and have loads of cable but the wrong type.

I think electrifying our cars is a great idea. Technology is racing ahead so in the next few years I imagine it will become a viable proposition. GM and Ford already offer 'crate' electric motors for some of their cars. Plenty of info out there about conversions the only hinderance at present is the cost. Local to me there is a company that is about to convert the owners GT6 having experimented first on MGs https://www.evclassic.co.nz/ The easy way seems to be to leave the gearbox (overdrive can be kept) in place and replace the ICE with an electric motor I saw an electric motorbike recently and what impressed me was how quiet and smooth it was, this could be a revelation for many of used to our cars coughing, farting and wheezing there way down the road🤪 My ideal would be to convert the car in such a way that the ICE can be reinstated easily for what ever reason. It is you car and you can do whatever you like with it. Maybe by the time I get to rebuild my Vitesse Mk2 CV I will go electric.

A couple of these in the Vitesse would be nice. Be nice with the 4.11 diff https://advrider.com/the-omega-1-engine-from-astron-aerospace/ and https://www.motortrend.com/features/might-new-concept-rotary-range-extender-fly-technologue/

Last year a work colleague offered me a Jenny/Swage which he was selling on behalf of the widow of a friend. Me being a tool collector said yes straight away and was the proud owner of the new still waxed tool with 6 sets of rollers for NZ$200. I put it away till this year knowing that I had an issue using it as my bench is over 100mm thick. Last week I decided to resolve this so finding a suitable piece of steel I put it in the lathe and turned a socket to fit the base spigot and cut a 150mm long piece of 40mm x 3mm SHS as my vice is 150mm wide. Welded the two together and painted them. This then created a problem of how to drive the Jenny as the handle hits the anvil area of my vice. I made an adaptor using an old 1/2 drive Sidchrome 9/16 socket which will be able to use the ratchet/tommy bar, air rattle gun, air ratchet or a hex to 1/2 sq/dr adaptor to use with a battery drill.

Me again progressing slowly with the MGF seats. Had a day off as I broke the chain on my MTB when I went for a ride down Pencarrow Coast so it was into town to get a replacement and refit Using spacers to get the required thickness I have decided to go with 30mm x 3mm SHS tube this gives 10mm more head room from the 40 SHS I was playing with. I have also trimmed the inner tunnel side slider so that it clears the tunnel at full legroom (which is a mod I did in a previous post) and more importantly clears the seat belt mount. After I cut the piece off and slid the seat right back a ball bearing from the slider mechanism fell out so after putting that back in I used a small self tapper to imitate the dimple in the slider that keeps the bbs in. Hopefully the attached photos explain better

Admittedly the first one I used was on a Honda EU generator but that one had an unreplaceable battery so went in the bin after the battery died. The one fitted to the car is fine and gives me engine speed changes as they happen but not as good a sweeping needle. Cheap, cheerful and do the job with simple installation.

I fitted a digital electronic rev counter that takes its feed from a wire wrapped around plug lead 1 on a vintage car with a very bouncy tacho. They are made for small engines and run a onboard battery and have an run time hour clock as well. Similar to this one https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/402829208695?hash=item5dca7dec77:g:GYMAAOSwOydglNK Also got a digital GPS speedo on the dash as well. Will get the original instruments sorted in due time but these do the job for now

Thanks for the offer EV but having two sets gives me a bit of UH OH tolerance🤔

Another modification to the seat runners I made today is drilling two extra holes then filing them square and filing a 1/2 square piece into the end of the rail so the slider can use the whole track and beyond, next one will have neater holes I promise. This is a relatively simple job and as long as they do'nt break or bend will be something to do on the good seats when they get back from the upholsterer. Every bit helps when you are 6'5"!. I also revisited the 40mm SHS and might revise my plan and make it out of 30mm SHS, if I need to I can pack it back up the 10mm or whatever thickness I think suitable. Nothing open till tomorrow wednesday due to New Year holidays so plenty of time to change plans.