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I got to have a go on a mates tig today, first practiced just laying beads accross some 2mm stainless then butt wealding them together, i found controlling the filler rod to be the problem for me. But i did manage to do some good looking wealds, much more practice required. Dan I've not done a great deal of TIG, but spent a few hours having a play with a half decent machine zapping some thinner bits of steel together. I found that with the machine set somewhere near, the ability to gas weld to a good standard made it relatively intuitive to get started on the TIG. Some decent welds, but more practice needed.
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Another college one...
We were being taught how to do water ballast on tractor tyres, the instructions basically being air out, valve up top, fill with water, valve back in and inflate.
To empty, valve up top, air out, then rotate tyre and water out.
The group previous to us had filled the tyre with water, we were taking it out. One lad dived straight in with the valve key, with the valve at the bottom of the tyre.
The instructor motioned to the rest of us to say nothing, and as the valve core came out it was followed by a jet of water being driven out of the tyre by a reasonable volume of air at 30psi.
We laughed a lot as he got a shower.
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We have this problem a lot where I live, rather close to Sellafield.
Our village is one of the rat runs that people come flying down in order to avoid the traffic on the main road to the site entrances. Generally they think they're more important than the local residents and believe they have right of way, a d if you're fool enough to let one through then woe betide you as another 30 will follow without thought to let anyone else through the other way.
Some of us have taken to not backing down to them, and sitting back and waiting for them to realise they're not going to win. A few months ago my Mrs did this on her way back from getting the kids from school, refusing to reverse 100 yards when a Sellafield van could have moved back 3 feet and let her through, and ended up with 5 men at her window shouting and swearing telling her to move.
She did however stand her ground and after 20 minutes they backed up and let her through, with a line of at least 70 cars backed up through the village because of it.
Another neighbour came up against similar with her disabled son in the car. After 5 minutes waiting she gave up, got the young lad out of the car, locked it up and walked back home.
One of the bastards was kind enough as to run over my cat whilst speeding through the village as though the extra 30 seconds he might have gained would make a difference to his life.
They'll learn. Eventually.
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Loving some of the stories coming out in this thread.
I'm seeing quite a few parallels to my own experience in some of them.
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The bicycle story reminds me of a couple of others that have happened at work.
Chaps bike goes missing one day, he finds it hanging on the flag pole next to the wind sock on the roof of the main shed.
Same bike goes missing again. This time found, then reassembled after an hour long scavenger hunt around the yard.
Different bike, same owner, same practical joker. 'Tyres on your bike are looking a bit flat chap, best blow em up.'
Not being particularly au fait with these things asks for the best pressure, and goes along with it when 100psi is suggested.
Surprisingly they inflate that far, and he makes it about 30 yards out of the shed door on the bike before the wheels detonate, leaving very little asides some mangled spokes hanging from the hubs, and said cyclist lieing in a heap atop it.
Makes my writing 'Juicy' across the back bumper of said jokers 3 Series Bimmer in the assorted road grime seem pretty tame really.
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Doesn't really mean it was in on the whole deal though?
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A college one this time...
One of the lads in my group had left his boots outside the workshop door over lunch. Innocent enough, but foiled by the rather heavy rain storm which occurred not long after he left them.
Returning 45 minutes later he found them full of water, with the fleecy lining retaining quite a bit of moisture after they'd been poured out. A quick scout round the workshop led him to the conclusion the oxy-acetelene torch held just in the rim of each boot was just what he needed to dry them out toot sweet, and so he set too with a cutting nozzle and a neutral flame.
It doesn't take a genius to realise the lining of both boots went up in flames fairly quickly, and burned fairly well considering. Gas off, and a bit of panicked fire suppression saw a group of us staring at a pair of smouldering boots stood in the middle of the workshop, around this time the workshop door opens and one of our instructors walks in. The expected bollocking doesn't occur, and instead -without breaking his stride- we see a slight sideways glance followed with a quip of 'Hmm, controlled explosion' as he disappeared through the door into the welding shop.
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Some good ones so far. Another short one from me... A lad I used to work with had a bad habit of dropping his guts next to you and wandering off, it was never what you'd call 'fresh' and often happened when you were under something and in the middle of a job in such a way as you couldn't walk away and wait for it to clear. It finally came back to bite him in the ass so to speak when I was giving him a hand getting the timing belt back onto a car with very little space between inner wing and timing cover, the make and model I forget. He was crouched in the wheel arch dealing with the crank pulley and tensioner whilst I was lucky enough to be up top -in fresh air- feeding it over the cams. Ten minutes of fighting meant that after his erupted there was very little choice but for him to plug on in a cloud of his own stench contained within the arch until the belt was on and secure. He looked a bit pale when he came back out.
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We've all done daft things when working on cars or machinery in the workshop, be it practical jokes, your own cock ups etc.
Share the best tales you have, with the incident which inspired this post to start us off.
At present I work for an Agricultural Contractor as an engineer of several disciplines. Along with all the farm gear, the wagons and plant, we also get to look after the company vans, and it is one of these -a 51 registered Citroën Berlingo no less- which serves as the centre point for this tale.
It was deposited with us with the explanation that the back end broke loose when going round left hand corners, at speeds as low as 15-20mph, and the suggestion that maybe the anti roll bar had snapped. The immediate checks that the tyres had air in them and the wheel nuts tight didn't shed a great deal of light on the matter, whilst the initial look at the rear beam with it sat on the lift confirmed my suspiscion that the anti roll bars were in fact perfectly fine.
The presence of a diesely substance down the right hand side of the van did however raise suspiscion, and came with the confirmation 'It's been a bit heavy on juice recently'. A few days of wet weather and a diesel leak that had spread as far as the rear wheel confirmed the cause of the problem -a split in the pipe as it ran up the bulkhead- which we deemed to be best solved by replacing it with a length of rubber fuel hose.
Simple enough you might think, until one cuts the pipe and discovers the 5/16" i/d hose that has been carefully run in for the purpose is in fact too small to go over the 10mm pipe on the van, which if not for my thumb over the end would be in the process of siphoning the contents of the tank onto the floor.
No problem thinks I, and a shout accross the workshop to one of my workmates soon sees me equipped with an airline and a blow gun to banish the fuel back to the tank. A couple of quick blasts followed by a reassuring few seconds of calm with no fuel running out is broken by a return of the stream of fuel. Further quick thinking sees more air blasted up the pipe as I had obviously not given it enough to clear the pipe back into the tank unit, whilst the veritable jet of fuel now spraying back out of the pipe before I covered the end again leading to the dawning realisation that I had rather helpfully just inflated a relatively full diesel tank.
A quick assessment of the situation again called for me to shout for my workmate with the fairly urgent request that he remove the filler cap. Dutifully obliging he shimmies up a set of steps, obtains the keys and proceeds to open the cap, to be met with -at least from what I saw under the van- a cloud of diesel emerging from the filler neck, followed by some spluttering and the age old war cry of 'ya dirty curse word', somewhat covered by the hysterical laughter of the others -including me- in the workshop who witnessed the incident, and eve the lad himself had a good laugh about it once he'd gotten cleaned up a bit.
Hopefully that translated onto the page fairly well rather than just becoming a 'you had to be there' moment.
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If the old centre shaft is in decent condition then reuse it.
The pattern ones aren't unknown for shearing off, and having had it happen whilst doing a 3 point turn, I can tell you that even at low speed it makes the your bum grab the seat pretty tightly.
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Interesting logic to say the least.
An image hosting website who have for many years been known as a popular FREE third party image host decide that they're going to start charging for the service, even though their site contains more bugs than the average ants nest (I apologise for the Americanism, but it works in context) and popups adverts appearing like seagulls around a man with a bag of chips on Scarborough sea front.
$399? Will you take a cheque?
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Let us mourn the passing of the photos in this thread as another victim of photobucket.
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Jun 30, 2017 20:59:04 GMT
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(I can take the mick , ive owned three) Only three? The bug obviously hasn't bitten that hard.
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Jun 30, 2017 20:04:14 GMT
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It's the same as 'One Life. Live it.' and other pointless slogans along with barbed wire stickers on many 4x4 vehicles.
I bought a Land Rover with a 'One Life.' Sticker over the leading edge of the bonnet, and the first thing I did before driving away was put a strip of Duck Tape over it.
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Looks like someone has fitted a set of parabolic springs at some point. They're not unknown for leaving the vehicle leaning to one side -depending on manufacturer- once fitted. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that the home made shackle on the rear was a DIY attempt to make it sit level. Steering relays are a pain in the to work with, siezed ones can be dealt with in a variety of ways. The relay shaft is held in place by 2 sets of fibre bushes, with a strong spring between them which when it's all pushed together gives a reasonable preload. If it's lost all its oil and it's run dry then it'll display the symptoms you've described. Knowing that aftermarket replacements have been known to shear the relay shaft -I've dealt with several- and are an utter pig to remove, trying to sort the original in situ isn't a bad idea. I've had sucess in the past removing 2 bolts from the top of the relay body -opposite corners- and one from the bottom before (very slowly) filling it with diesel and working the steering wheel lock to lock (drop the drag link to make it easier) and with some perseverance the relay will begin to free up. After which replace the bottom bolt, and fill it -again very slowly- through the top hole with the correct spec oil. Worth noting also that the little tin retaining ring on the bottom of the crossmember can work loose and allow sideways movement when load is applied which will contribute to steering wander, along with the top two securing bolts into the chassis, which doesn't help either. Keep in mind there are six track rod ends in the steering system -two more between steering box and relay- and that properly set up the Series steering system doesn't really need a steering damper as the relay and Railko bush setup on the top swivel pins provides the necessary resistance. Dampers were generally only fitted to Forward Control models and others which were expected to run higher total weights, or larger tyres. Hope that's helpful.
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Nice landy. I think the front prop is out as he said to reduce fuel economy as you wont have freewheeling hubs on the front. sounds like you've got a really nice one. Dan To be honest, freewheel hubs or removing the front propshaft make absolutely zero difference to the economy with a Tdi conversion. Provided you're not doing racing changes the driveline holds up pretty well, although they will find any weaknesses in there pretty quickly.
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Jun 28, 2017 21:07:10 GMT
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People who put Porsche wheels and badges on vw's and then think it's a Porsche. Or an even worse one, there use to be a vw Passat (estate 😂) full of Bentley badges, tragic 😞. Or a Chrysler 300C with Bentley badges trying to make out its a Conti GT.
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Was it a scouse Ford dealer?
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Jun 26, 2017 21:14:08 GMT
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Whilst we're on that one, the may different pronunciations used for the Ford Ka.
Kah. Car. Kay-Ey...
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Jun 26, 2017 19:09:45 GMT
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X5's with the 3 litre diesel are available around the £2.5k mark, bloody good engines.
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