Something I have to do for mine too.

But given that a Lemfoder drag link assembly cost me £46 + VAT from Island 4x4 back at the end of May it hardly seems worth battling with an old one. Joints are bound to be well worn too and I've seen similar broken during the hit, heat and heave with added scaffold pole process. Just what you want on Sunday afternoon when you need the beast to get to work on Monday!

However I tend to price my time out at around half garage rate and figure I'm ahead if I spend less than that on new parts. So usually plenty of wiggle room for new "not necessarily essential but so much easier to handle" than the "rusty but serviceable" bits that came off. At my age do it once, do it right and do it fast is attractive.

Different if its just tweaking recent replacement of course.

Clive

Agree that fan draught and under-car airflow sweeps minor oil (and water!) leaks all over the place so its hard to locate the source. Point of deposition has more to do with swirls and eddies in the flow than anything else.

Similar cable and pipe oil wetting on mine seems to have pretty much gone away since I changed the front crankshaft oil seal and, of necessity, re-did the sump joint a couple or three years ago.

Clive

Electric control bit doesn't really matter as its a simple DC motor. Take supply out of an always live when ignition is on feed with the usual bi-directional power on / power off drive and job done. Retracts when the ignition goes off, swings out when it goes on. Basically a change-over relay and two diodes. Need an over-ride for servicing of course.

A potentially hairy issue is if Disco system lacks limit switches relying on seeing the stalled motor current spike to detect end of travel. Still do-able in a retro hack but a pain in the behind to get always reliable right without risking motor burn-out. Correctly done a computerised system can detect difference between hard stop and sticky movement so motor overload is unlikely. Not so easy with a simple retro-hack where stalled current spike has to be greater than maximum overload. I've built such limit stopless drive systems in pre micro days with safe stall current and short overload motion capability but it gets tricky.

3D printers sound like good idea but its a shedload of work to get properly up to speed for real world jobs. Need good one too if the results are going to be strong enough. That said if you do get a good one folk will be forming a queue for good quality sunroof guide bits! Better to design properly and go to a bureau service. Looked at the whole 3D thing more than a few times but as I still can't be arsed to get my CNC mill going ....

Clive

Had similar effects and marks with cast iron disks on my Norton Commander. Supplier sent replacement disks saying they had had some material issues. And told me off for upgrading calipers from standard two piston XJ900 ones to 4 piston FJ1200 ones which should have had a slightly different material. Dammed if I can recall if they made me a special pair from the right material or not but 70,000 miles on were still working fine.

Clive

Before you start make up an O ring sorting stand to keep the new ones in order before you fit them and the old ones in order as you take them out. I bang some thin nails into an off cut of melamine faced chipboard. Plain wood or ordinary chipboard will do fine but needs smooth plastic face, half a freezer bag for example, to nurse the new O rings aren't damaged.

Lots of O rings in the packet and its easy to miss one if you aren't organised. I know I guy who did and wondered why it didn't work properly! Having done a fair bit of similar keep it it order stuff in the past I thought I could just lay them out on the bench. Nope! Pride'n falls'n all that.

Collets push in easier with a U shape tool pushing on two sides than with a screwdriver operating on one. I copied my memory of the fancy one that Newport used to put in the box with air spring leg optical tables as those use the same collet fittings.

Clive

Probably just heat exhaustion!

Or in my case just heavy duty solitaire trying to make room to get my car lift installed in the garage. Taking forever! One of those six deep have to do this before I can do that so t'other can be done ..... thingies.

Plan A. Just clear out back of garage, pull bike lift out to make room to swivel pallets and unload, put bike lift back in middle of car lift. Rewire for 220 volts three phase from 415 volts. Hook up VFD, thats the really easy bit. Sort out a baby compressor to release the air locks. Build or buy that is the question. Oh and stick mirrors on back wall whilst I'm at it to add light.

Actual. Most of stuff in back of garage has to go up in workshop attic. So sort workshop attic out first. Except insulation under metal roof is falling down so sort that first. Freaking hot and very difficult to do working round all the stuff flat on back. Half done but most of the stuff to be re-homed over the workshop is moved. Remains has to go in house loft so gonna make sone decent shelving first, fed up with the standard pile. Need to reposition the scaffold hoist so it swings over the middle of the trap rather than from one corner. Which means I need a longer scaffold pole so weld two bits together. Which is where we got to yesterday evening! Now the scaffold hoist pivots need re-engineering so it goes full circle ....

Am I gonna get it done before (new) builder turns up to shift a couple of walls old builder put in wrong place when doing the extension!

Oh joy. Now Bridgeport head is rattling like mad over most of the speed range. So that will have to be done in-between. Hate futzing with varidrives!

But my life is now complete. Just paid gas and electricity bill before noticing the old supplier had used well wrong, estimated, readings instead of the ones submitted when I closed the account and switched suppliers. Like you can use negative amounts of electricity -800 odd KWHh in this case. Another hour or more gone on website battles.

Where's my chefs hat, time to cook dinner.

Clive

Once you get used to the noise it'll be a proper pussy-cat. Just make sure its tied down properly before you use it and that you have firm footing. Like (nearly) all machines you just have to be firm and confident to show it who is the boss.

Clive

That saw looks excellent value. Pity they cheaped out by only providing one clamp although there are four receptacles for it in the base. Looks pretty much like the SIP one I got 14 years ago to build my workshop. They all seem to use the same design of base casting. But I got two clamps.

Frequently a bit more controllable to make cut by bringing the head down and sliding it rather than a vertical chop. I often use a combined movement to reduce the chance of lifting but thats not a novice technique as getting it wrong can make things worse.

Clamp the part to be cut firmly down into the corner between base and fence. Use a stop to set the length as there is no satisfactory way of marking the stuff. Measure twice cut once of course.

If you have a set of grip palm work gloves, either leather or PU faced cloth, you may be able to hold the main body down into the corner between fence and base. Use the heel of your hand. Not your thumb! Cut the longer spacers first. Free end will dance around quite wildly until you get it down to 500 mm or so. It will almost certainly try to escape as the cut goes through. Just had a quick play holding some offcuts down on mine. 40 mm Ø no problem, 25 mm Ø too small, no 30 mm Ø to try. Depends on your hand size and how well your gloves fit. I have small hands and use the stretchy PU faced cloth work gloves from LiDL. Cheap, comfy and made in my size.

Of course having done a couple or three sets got the knack and nailed down what it feels like when all is going well you'd dump the clamp(s) and do it free hand. Like wot Chris does and as I would. Albeit with a block of wood having a Vee out of one corner to help hold the material down.

Last thing. Chop / mitre saws are really, really noisy. I pretty much levitated first time I turned mine on!

Clive

Morat
Use the clamps both sides of the cut when using a chop saw. Usual chop saw blade and speeds are rather too aggressive for Delrin so it can get bit lively during the process. Doesn't help that the stuff is smooth and slippery making it hard to hold with one hand. If you have some excess material best to have a couple of practice goes to get the right rate of cut. Pushing the saw through too slow or too fast will both give poor results.

Although you can cut it with woodworking tools it certainly doesn't cut like wood. As with all plastics it cuts like, well, plastic. Worst thing when using ordinary tools is getting a neat end and shifting the fluffy bits round the edge. Miles better than high density polythene tho' which is a total bear.

Clive

Have you checked that the joints in the coupling to the suspension move freely.

My fronts were playing up a bit but when sorting the radius arm bushes I found the pivot pins on the radius arms were well corroded with serious flaking. Made some new stainless ones and fitted with red rubber grease in the connectors. Sorted. Not convinced my back pivots are as good as it could be but thats a job for another day.

Delrin or nylon is a pain to handsaw accurately. Parting off on a lathe works best for a neat, accurate, job. Looks like best value on t'bay at the moment is 2500 mm of 30 mm Ø delrin for near as dammitt £41 delivered. Which will do two sets. I need to do a set for myself so if Morat wants to go halves I'll knock out two sets and send one up. Left over 400 mm will always come in handy. Can easily do more sets whilst I'm set up if folk want.

Clive

My cover is exactly the same as Brians'. I bought the screen holder too. Its an FLY branded universal holder modified by replacing the multi adjustable cradle with a replica of the metal clip over cover. So it sits in quite securely with the screen fully visible. Cant see any great issues in engineering something equivalent although probably need thumb screw location rather than the spiffy clip on cover modification.

Clive

Think the protective metal cover came with later versions. Got one with mine.

Trick to getting it off and back on is to make sure its dead central over the screen. Its sensibly loose then and comes off easily. Side plates stick up a smidgin above the main case to stop the cover sliding off. But you can get the cover on or off when its overlapping the sides if you push or pull really hard. Would have been better if the sides were a touch higher so the cover has to go centrally between them rather than it being possible to get it on with an overlap. No issues when you know. Took me about 4 tries before the penny dropped.

Found a Sat Nav case in Halfords just big enough to hold Nano and leads. Mine lives in the top drawer of my Snap On midsection.

Clive

Agreed on the general wonderfulness of heated screens but the bottom (reading) end of my varifocal glasses focuses nicely on the elements which can be irritating. I see about 6" to 9" deep worth of elements when not absolutely focusing well up the road. Really only notice when looking around at junctions et al but ...

Don't like to drive with fixed focus distance glasses as speedo and everything in the car is fuzzy.

Clive

My W plate 4.0 SE has the pinstripe and HLR on the side. But not on the rear. Just 4.0 SE.

Clive

I got a Hella one from Euro Car Parts. Allegedly OEM so I figured the holes would line up. Didn't fancy store brand or E-Bay cheap having heard about fixing and fan hole issues on other vehicles with cheap and who-they brands.

Fan fixings were in the right place but two of the fixing holes didn't quite line up. Close but no cigar. A bit of minor filing on the car sorted things.

When you are tooling up to produce these things properly how hard can it be to get the holes right! Too hard obviously.

Clive

Doesn't sound right. Stamped on mine once at around 40 mph and it was downright scary. Nice dry road, antilock banging away like crazy and we pulled up in about half the distance I expected. Major room for Mr Magoo to pull out in front of me. Good job there was no one behind or the tow hook would have collected a front bumper!

Brakes are bit heavier weighted than the modern norm. Most of which I think are too darn light anyway. But thats by design. Underneath all the leather and nice toys is a supremely capable off roader so decently weighted brakes (an long travel throttle) are essential for smooth control when rocking'n rolling across country.

Suits me just fine but then I pretty much live in lace up boots, either walking style or hard toes. Don't think I've worn what would be called normal shoes this year! Or last.

Clive

Assuming the inner pipe is the one that has to be blanked off probably the easiest way to tackle that job is to make two or even three part unit. Basically a union of whatever size is convenient screwed or otherwise fixed onto the outer pipe with an internal thread enabling a solid blanking rod to be screwed up against the inner pipe O ring sealing the pipe off. Loctite should hold and seal the threads. Do what you will with the outer pipe union. Either capped off too or drilled for flow elsewhere with a matching non standard thingy to make the joint Come out sideways if you have to. Who cares about ugly under t'car if it works!

Done something similar to this before when a concentric pipe systems needed to be sealed and measuring up to make properly dimensioned projection was just too much like work.

Clive

Confession time!

I power washed the engine compartment on mine with no ill effects. Done it on several other cars too. But my power washer is an industrial Karcher (ex hire company gone broke) with adjustable pressure and a maximum volume adjustment on the trigger. Turned right down it has little more oomph than a hosepipe but the actual wetting position is very controllable although swinging a 4 ft (ish) double lance with separate suds & water feeds can get cumbersome. But for £15 back in 1985 or there-abouts I wasn't complaining.

Didn't one of the detailing masters on here reckon a hand held steam cleaner worked well?

One day I shall make me a Haralson pressure multiplying hose end just to see how well they do.

Clive

PS Dyson. Over-rated, overhyped, badly engineered and, frankly, not very effective. Had one. Got fed-up with fixing it every couple of years and scored a cheap Kirby out of the local free ad paper. Also seriously overhyped and (way, way) overpriced but effective and built like a battleship. Fixing Dyson "Its just stopped" cleaners was easy money for a while but when one comes back for the fourth time 'cos James D can't design a cable clamp it got bit too old. James D is in the same category as Clive Sinclair and Alan Sugar all mouth, no trousers and a convincing line of patter to cover up incompetence. Ball-barrow was the only good idea James ever had. Even then he couldn't get the centre of gravity right managing to produce a wheelbarrow that is almost impossible to tip for emptying. Which is pretty hard to do!

While you are waiting for the shocks spend some quality time getting some good doses of Plus Gas, or whatever your preferred magic releaser in a tin is (not WD40, please), round the threads. I did and was pleasantly surprised by how relatively easily things came off. Post removal inspection suggested trying to shift things dry would have been a fairly major battle.

Definitely impact wrench on the top bolts. For my first try I used a breaker bar with the socket drive extensions needed to reach in past the wheel properly supported on axle stands. Those air pipes are far to vulnerable if the socket cams off the bolt head to risk working freehand. It clearly wasn't going to move with any sane force on the breaker bar. So I bought a cheap electric impact gun. Spun out so easy that I thought the socket had cammed off the head.

Clive

If you have the measurements and a mate with a lathe its not too difficult to make a tube with a suitable taper inside to compress the bush.

Did one for my front radius arm bushes. Will do one for my rear ones but that's on next years schedule! If someone knows the sizes I can easily make one for you.

Clive