Had a quick nooge concerning Jitsi on the Mac and there seem to be some reports of connection problems with it. Time to delve deeper.

Microphone on my laptop works fine with dictation, albeit with some sensitivity to audio level setting, so seems to be an issue with Jitsi not picking it up properly.

I'll see if I can find someone local who knows about such things to do same room set-up testing.

Clive

Looks like my mac microphone doesn't want to play!

Hafta sort out an external one for next time!

Concerning a hefty torque wrench for Morat I'm very happy with my Britool HVT5000. Under £70 delivered off E-Bay. Its something of a monster, 3/4 drive and over 3 ft long but it does 100 to 400 ft lb and no worries about things breaking as its old school without ratchet, reverse lever or any other niceties. Just a push through drive square to reverse.

Mine didn't have the adjuster widget which folks seem to set great store by when paying higher prices. Old knows why 'cos a screwdriver through the hole in the short sticky out shaft works just fine. Its not as if its like its smaller cousins of similar vintage where the adjuster slides down into a hollow shaft.

Clive

I don't think Blanco needs to be overly worried about the life of his air-spings yet. My Dunlops are approaching 10 years old and got their first advisory about minor perishing on the MoT last week. My inspection suggests they ought to be good for another year at least.

General consensus seems to be 60,000 to 70,000 miles or 10 - 12 years are reasonable expectations. Mine will age out rather than mileage out, maybe hit 25,000 miles at most. Seems logical that air-springs should age out at a similar rate to tyres so going much past 10 years will be pushing the envelope.

My 65 th birthday "me to me" present Yamaha GTS arrived on 2005 dated tyres with interesting (?!) effects on handling. The now sorted R75/7 BMW clogging up my bike lift wears either 1984 or 1994 dated tyres. Anyone who thinks I'm road testing that needs to stop taking the high test optimism pills.

Clive

Checking through my lists approaching £1,000 sounds about right to do everything suspension related at 2020 prices. Reasonable though most individual prices are all the bits do add up.

Wouldn't touch stainless steel steering links with a barge, let alone the pole. Stainless isn't a miracle metal and there are manufacturing and fabrication issues where dynamic loads are concerned. I'd need do be very sure that such items came from a proper maker with the needful design skills and engineering back up. Not a 2 man and a dog workshop producing a look-alike.

My list for "everything" in 2018 - 2019 comes to around £930 with Lemfoder steering links, ball joints, official Land Rover bushes, full set of Bilstien shockers and Bilstien steering damper. Paddock prices for the Bilsteins were good at £350 for all five. Still need to get round to actually fitting the bushes in the front panhard rod tho'.

Air bags were done several years earlier so they would be extra.

As folks here know my opinion is that its best to do everything in one hit as you get maximum benefit for your money. Although £1,000 always sounds expensive you are really comparing cost against depreciation on something new enough not to need such work. Which will be lots more even though you don't crystallise the cost until changing the vehicle.

Being charitable we should spare a tender thought for those unfortunates who have an L322!

Clive

Price for FTC2249 looks to be outrageous. Twenty drinking vouchers (ish) for a plastic bush!

Tempting to dig out some Delrin and make up a batch when I have some spare time (that'll be never then).

Clive

Theoretically the copper mesh behaves like a tolerance ring. Less area of contact but more pressure to give the right amount of grip. The relatively large contact area of the sensor body makes getting the right grip an exercise in inconveniently tight tolerances if plain holes are used. Most especially with the plastic bush as plastics are not known for super accuracy and dimensional stability with temperature.

Pity they didn't use the same system at the front. Then it might be possible to get the darn things out in one piece after a decade or so.

Clive

I have my doubts about modern Boge dampers. Put OEM Boge, the right numbers at half the Land Rover cost, on mine and got perhaps 10,000 miles out of them. Maybe less, usually I'm anal about recording servicing and spares costs but that one slipped through. Front ones gave up worst wth bump steer symptoms close to the death wobble. Changed everything else first 'cos I knew it wasn't the dampers!

Bilsteins all round now. Including the steering damper. Paddock were doing them at acceptable prices so I went for the name and reputation. A little stiffer than standard but I'm happy. Monroe would have been about half the price but we already knew they are OK so I figured first hand experience with another brand might be interesting.

I've got a set of fully refurbished front radius arms sitting around. Factory bushes and a half decent coat of paint. I really need to do something with them.

Made up the gubbins to convert one of the small "12 ton rams" used in import puller sets and hydraulic ball joint splitters to a look-alike of the Sykes Picavant 18771100 tool officially recommended by Land Rover. Got one of the big G-clamp style first but it wasn't up to the job. Only managed two out of four. The Laser version will be a waste of money. Seriously under strength. But after discovering Lasers version of the radius arm bush tool doesn't actually fit the P38 despite what it said on the box I'm done with their stuff. Flat out refusal to give a refund for a tool that doesn't, and cannot, work is no way to win customer loyalty.

Clive

Morat wrote:

Don't cut the new headliner material flush with the front of the shell, you want to tuck that back up over the front or it'll be untidy at the top of the screen.
Or so I heard ;)

Proven.

Allow plenty to pull over and shape round. I didn't allow enough on mine and it settled with a soft crease up round the interior light.

Unless you are experienced with such things P38 head lining replacement is best tackled as a three person job. Two to hold it up and one to smooth it into place. Just the two of us doing mine. Found it quite difficult to do my part of the holding clear as well as the smoothing into place. In retrospect I might have done better to make up a support kit for the unfitted trim and done the whole job solo. But would have taken ages to sort support that I'd have been happy with.

Martrims adhesive doesn't take prisoners. One touch and its grabbed. Absolutely not coming off again!

The Martrim products are good but is probably a good idea not to breathe adhesive fumes. Inspector Wasp came to look at mine whilst we were clearing up ready to re-install. Perfect 6 point landing. Three twitches of the proboscs .... and .... Ex-Wasp. Fat on its back stone dead.

Clive

I've given up trying to clean up calliper pins and the like beyond removing dried oil or grease gunk. Never seem to stay clean and smoothy moving once the first signs of corrosion have arrived.

At todays prices, under a tenner for each end, its the sort of thing you order on spec before hitting the spanners so you have them if you need them. Bit different from back in the pre 'net days when such were manufacturers spare parts starting at "how much!" prices with main dealer special order loading.

Clive

With the strip under the reed valve its natural position is slightly open so its feasible that this arrangement leads to faster opening and more time / area for the inlet valve so you get more air in than you lose by the valve being slightly open for the initial phase of the compression stroke.

If I recall correctly reed valves of this sort are quite slow in operation under inlet pressures, primarily because you need to have enough pressure differential to actually bend the thing so it opens. Only 14 psi max available and you want it open at the lowest possible differential pressure to maximise cylinder filling. With the small gap air will start flowing immediately after TDC. Flow through the small gap will be quite fast reducing pressure significantly in that region and to some degree reducing it over the whole port area which will help the valve open. Given that inlet reed valves usually seem to operate with restricted openings I suspect that air flow speed related pressure drop is a fairly important factor in helping keep them open and maximise efficiency.

No doubt there is some maths somewhere.

Clive

Last spanner I thinned down went on the shaper.
So relaxing in a Victorian type of way and awsome finish is easy.

Agree that strap wrench is best for the accumulator. The type that wraps a webbing strap round a thick rod to tighten it is probably best in this case.

Clive

PS How do normal folks manage without machining facilities!

Its sensible to have a small table or similar set up next to the car to put the battery on and get it twisted the right way before moving it into place.

Although you can just muscle them into place those batteries are getting close to the size where you have to think things through and make reasonably proper arrangements.

Most drop / knock disasters I've seen when humping heavy things into restricted spaces have been when folk have tried to do the lift'n twist bit from floor to fitted in one go. I finally learnt my lesson in that respect when nearly tripping over my feet in the turn with over a hundredweight of 12" rotary table cuddled up to my chest when shifting from bench to Bridgeport.

Not a bad idea to put something solid over the vulnerable areas just in case.

Hafta say I cheated and just took mine down to the local tyre'n battery place. They made it a two man job. And disposed of the old one. Win-Win.

Not a Hankook but the first "house brand" one lasted about 7 or 8 years and the second has 2 or 3 years under its belt. My car doesn't do enough miles, especially in lockdown, to properly look after the battery so I generally recharge every couple of months.

Cheapy LiDL "smart" charger or Clive's special upgraded Winfield (Woolworths brand) box upgraded around 1975 with much bigger mil spec transformer and husky diodes. No idea what the special puts out but the meter goes to 6 amps and the needle bounces off the stop on a well down battery. The wires get warm!

Clive

Looks like he has run out so no longer listed.

Found the same thing at £3.50 now.

Description is "Universal Mobile Phone 360 Rotating In Car Mount Holder Cradle Stand - UK Seller", new listing number 254071842688 .

To be fair it has been very hot and the car is parked nose on to the sun for the hottest part of the day. I suspect anything having a soft silicon pad under the (black) suction cap would have suffered similarly. I stuck it on about 2 years ago and it had stayed put until it melted.

Clive

Happy ending to the saga.

A good deal of looking on E-Bay turned up what looked to be the same holder at £5 a pop. Arrived today.

Identical to the old one. Which counts as a result.

Item 293370412151if anyone else wants a compact one for a smaller phone, mine is an IPhone SE, that sits nicely in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

Clive

I wonder if the Venhill system having simple pipe thread free nut unions on the ends of the hoses with separate screw on connectors to mate with the brake caliper or whatever has any advantages for car work. Seems logical and a bit more flexible, especially if its something where you can't get them off the shelf. Prices seem much the same as the usual Goodridge et al one piece types.

I've done Goodridge myself before back when made to fit was either not available or horrendously costly. Still have all the tooling but I can do without being poked by sharp ends of stainless braid.

Clive

Shopping time yesterday afternoon so I went to move the big red beast for the first time in a fortnight(ish) and noticed the phone holder stuck to the right hand bottom corner of the screen was dangling a bit wrong. After an exploratory poke, must work on my self control, it dangled down a whole lot more with great strings of transparent sticky plastic gloop running back to the screen.

Post shopping investigation showed the transparent plastic under the rubber suction thingy had melted. It also showed that removal in the heat of the afternoon wasn't going to happen. The stuff seemed to have approaching infinite stretchability with a Poisson Ratio nearly as high and that (gremlin decreed) perfect level of tackiness that won't actually stick and stay put as you try to work with it but leaves a near impossible to remove layer of tack gunk on your hands and tools. Think old, hot, cheap insulation tape adhesive remnants. Cubed.

In the cool of the morning it was a bit better mannered and scraped off the screen leaving a small deposit that succumbed to cellulose thinners.

Best scrapers I've found for all sorts of things when you don't want to damage the underlying substrate are the something plastic ones my master baker grandfather used to use to clean out his mixing tins and bowls. Flour makers freebies, logos long gone. Prefect combination of flex and stiff without scratchy sharp edges that is seemingly unobtanium today. Probably not made since 1950 something and I'm down to my last two. If I recall correctly he was muttering about not being able tor replace them when he taught me how to hand make bread, properly, round about 1960. Standing on a stool to reach the bowl. Wish I'd paid more attention.

I guess the moral is "don't leave things stuck to the screen." Now I have to find another which may be hard as that one was a freebie and rather better in practice than the paid for ones. Wouldn't really matter except I've gotten used to Waze!

Clive

"Pardon!"

"Sorry did you say something?"

"You'll have to speak-up."

Yep. My hearing is worse than crap at the best of times but lying under the car those things are 'kin too darn loud even for me.

Clive

Martys DeWalt DCF899H and my Makita DTW1002Z impact wrenches are, for all practical purposes of identical size and performance.

Except the DeWalt is about a pound lighter, 6 lb as opposed to 7 for the Makita. My 4 AH battery adds over another pound. You will notice the difference when swinging around under the car.

Something to consider if contemplating one and not already locked into one or other battery system.

For vehicle use its best to get something with a high "nut busting" torque rating. Others are usually quoted by tightening torque and can be surprisingly wimpy when it comes to actually undoing something. Might manage relatively clean things OK but easily defeated by years of rust'n crap. Watch out for the ones intended for scaffolders and the like. Great for that but serious wimps under the car.

+1 for the extending wheel wrench. Every car I use gets one in the boot. Two spares in the Snap On box just in case. Her Ladyship was most unimpressed on discovering that she wasn't gonna get to keep the one I loaded up when slumming it in t'mini.

Clive

I have the big Makita DTW1002Z. Its a beast. A scary beast. 1,600 Nm nut busting torque. Doesn't even rattle on wheel nuts "tyre place" (over)tight.

Don't forget that the battery ones need to rattle for a little while to hit full torque. Makita usually quote about 30 seconds for nut busting level but then it drops off so you need to stop and start over. If you do get the big boy remember to hang on tight and brace your wrist. One heck of a jolt on start up if its on something tight. Much more brutal than (my) air ones.

Agree that a good battery one is the way to go. I've had air ones in 1/2 and 3/4 drive for more years than I care to recall yet have used the Makita more in the year I've had it than both air ones combined. Modern lithium batteries hold their charge well. I share 4 Makita 18 volt packs between two drills, the impact drive, a strimmer and hedge cutter and am never without enough charge to do one job.

Always torque wrench on of course.

The impossibly stubborn gets shown a 6 ft scaffold pole with 3/4 drive extension shaft welded on the end. I've had that bending nicely with two of us on it and the extension twisting by 20° or so before now. (Lancia front hub nut 350 ++ or so ft lb. Yikes!). Had folk come round with wheel nuts tight enough that I needed it too. What do these tyre shops think they are doing! Aren't you supposed to use those colour coded for the torque extension bars. Never really figured what they were all about but every tyre place I've been in seems to have a set over the bench. A really clean, as in never used look, set. Or at least have a poxy adjusta torque gun.

If you do a similar scaffold pole super breaker bar make sure there is enough extension showing on the opposite side of the square to get a support under so it stays on the nut. A pal borrowed it, neglected the support (I told him, I did) and it slipped off catching him on the chin during the rebound swing. Came back looking like he'd stood seriously too close to his razor that morning. I reckon he was lucky not to crack his jaw. I've been a bit less casual with the 3/4 drives ever since.

Clive