RTFM, it tells you that.......

I went to one car where various people had tried diagnostics and none would connect. I found that none would connect except for the BeCM which would and tested perfect. Turned out the feed to the main Ignition relay was damaged so that wasn't operating so none of the other systems were powered. What was even more confusing was that the dash isn't fed from the ignition relay but direct from the BeCM so everything lit up with the key in position 2. Everything except the Check Engine light as that is fed from the engine ECU which wasn't being powered up.

If you don't have front fogs, then chances are the wiring for them will be there (if it isn't you'd need to run a feed from the relevant outputs on the BeCM). Fit a front fog light switch, tell the BeCM it is fitted with front fogs and connect the new lights to the plugs that will be dangling there connected to nothing. The front fogs will come on with sidelights, dip beam and main beam but go off as soon as you turn the main lights off. No need for a separate relay, the circuits are protected by the MOSFETs in the BeCM that supply the power.

leolito wrote:

I wish we could setup Access Mode at limited speed like newer RRs can do, to do this in ours we need a way to fool the EAS which looks for the "P" >and the vehicle speed at zero...

But you can? Select Access, push the inhibit button and it stays in Access. I use it often in some of the French underground multi-storey car parks that have very little headroom. It complains if you reach 35 mph in Access but without the inhibit pushed in, it will rise to normal whether you want it to or not.

The extra socket on the NS has permanent power, ignition switched power, reversing light power and ground in it. I've used it to pick up a feed for a reversing camera and for a pair of additional power sockets in the boot. I've still got the original 7 pin trailer socket though.

The small 8mm headed ones do tend to seize in for some reason and the heads appear to be quite soft and round off easily. I've resorted to giving them a tap with a cold chisel on the edge of the flange to get them moving at times.

No, never had a problem at the engine end (probably as the fittings are well lubricated), it's just the steel/alloy joint at the cooler end that causes problems. That and the engine isn't going to move when you put lots of torque on the fittings but the cooler can as it is only bolted to thin steel.

I used an angle grinder to carefully cut the nut lengthwise just at the point where the thread is so it could be removed to replace the pipe without shearing the end off the cooler.

Small ones, FS106257L, M6 x 25 flange head, larger ones with the conical bit behind the head, 594134. Although I don't think I've ever come across a car that has had all of the bolts in.

I've got Vredestein Quadtrac 5 on mine and they are brilliant in all conditions and have lasted very well too (just over half worn after nearly 50,000 miles). They don't appear to make them in the 255/55 x 18 size you need but they do make the Quadtrac Pro which appears to be very similar. An all season tyre but with the 3 peaks marking and winter tread pattern on the inner edge of the tyre which worked very well in snow in Estonia. Superb in the wet too. About a million times better than the Goodyears I had on before......

Doesn't matter what gear the gearbox is left in as you've disconnected the flex plate bolts so that is clear. There's the 8 (2 at the top, 2 at the bottom and 2 down each side, which can be a pain to get a socket on) bellhousing bolts and the starter motor bolts and that's all that connects the engine to bellhousinhg. There are dowel pegs to align everything and it might just be stuck on them. Get something in to lever the engine away and see if you've got any movement. Make sure the gearbox weight is supported too, in fact, with a jack under the bellhousing you should be able to see a gap open up if you try the raise the gearbox.

They tend to rust and break at one end when the bearing seizes as the steel cable is bent back and forth every time you open it. As long as the replacements have the bearing, they will be fine. I think I have fitted Britpart in the past and they have had the bearing

I saw that but don't believe it. The tell tale is a production date of 2025 or something similarly ridiculous, Language set to French when it is obviously in English, manual box when you have an auto, VIN that bears no resemblance to the actual vehicle VIN and numerous other things that are obviously wrong.

On a petrol the oil cooler is above the condenser so all you need do is take the grille off and the upper slam panel. Hardest part is getting the old one out as you will almost certainly not be able to undo the pipes so you need to take it off with both pipes still attached (or chop them off with the angle grinder).

Don't worry about it, it'll be all scratched and scraped once you hitch a trailer up to it.....

On a non-contentious note and also clean.....

A baby octopus sits on the ocean floor feeling really rough and keeps throwing up. Along comes a friendly dolphin and asks him what's the matter, "Dunno, maybe it was something I ate" replies the octopus. "I know what you need" says the dolphin, "you need a change of water, hop onto my back and you can come with me". So the baby octopus hops on the dolphin's back and off they go. The octopus still isn't feeling too good when they run into a shoal of Mackerel. "What's with the baby octopus?" says the head Mackerel. "Oh, he's not feeling too good so I'm taking him out to give him a change of water" and they swim off. They carry on and bump into a whale. "What's with the baby octopus"? says the whale. "Oh, he's not feeling too good so I'm taking him out to give him a change of water" and they swim off. A little later, the baby octopus is beginning to feel a bit better but still not good and they bump into a basking shark. "How's it going?" says the shark. "Not bad" says the dolphin "but I've got that sick squid I owe you".......

With Boris Johnson a close second......

Typical Daily Excuse lack of proof reading and relying on speeling chuckers. Fuel holes appears at least 3 times when it actually means fuel hoses. Predictive text has corrected a misspelled increase into ice cream and in the same sentence an s has been replaced with an n so it reads "in a major concern" when it should say "is a major concern".

Lpgc wrote:

L322's with the BMW V8 suffer cam cover rear breather pipes turning to mush, possibly due to ethanol vapour (possibly an oversight on BMW's part but I forget when ethanol started being added to petrol)..?

The Mercedes 1.8, 2.0 litre and 2.3 litre, 4 cylinder supercharged engine suffers from what is known as the 8 pound pipe issue. Basically you get the MIL on and an unstable idle. The pipe, which as you might have gathered, costs £8 from Mercedes (probably the cheapest part you can buy from Mercedes) but it's a 5 hour job to change it as it is a breather between the crankcase and underside of the inlet manifold involving much dismantling to get to. The original pipe was made of rubber (the £8 replacement appears to be silicone) and turns into a gooey black mass. I suspect for exactly the same reason as the L322 breather does.

On every older car I've owned with a mechanical fuel pump, I've made up a blanking plate from 10mm alloy and stuck that over the hole and fitted an electric one instead. I suspect E10, if not E5, will eat it's way through the diaphragm in a mechanical pump.

I know it drops comms if you go over something like 2.5 kph but the last time I used it 0.0 kph was shown until the car started moving very slowly. That time I could see immediately that one wheel sensor was sluggish and didn't start to give a reading as quickly as the other 3. A tap with a hammer sorted that. I just couldn't understand why it seemed to be getting a reading from all 4 wheels when it was standing still.....

We got proper full fat leaded petrol up until about 1985 (so long before Strange Rover was born) when they phased it out. Didn't really cause too many problems. The odd car needed the ignition timing backing off by a couple of degrees while even fewer needed to have the valve seats replaced. Things like the original BL A series had the valve seats cut directly into the cast iron head so they had to have harder valve seats fitted.

The amusing thing about those three articles linked to is that the information all comes from the same bloke. So in the first one he's saying that it could result in a lean mixture leading to burnt valves and holed pistons (but does talk about carburettors so for anyone using a car still fitted with them will only need to adjust it, or at worst, change a jet or two), in the second one he talks about it attacking the rubber in the fuel system, which is absolutely correct which is why anything built since 2000 doesn't have any rubber in the fuel system (so all that anyone really worried about it would need to do would be to replace any rubber fuel hoses with hose made since 2000) and then in the third article he says it isn't a problem despite what other experts are saying. He obviously didn't realise that he is the other experts (or strictly speaking, expert, singular) so is disagreeing with himself.

He appears to be the classic definition of an expert, ex - former or has been, spurt - drip under pressure.

Of course if anyone is really worried about it, just call in at your local airfield and fill up with 101 Octane Avgas......