RobinJI

The oil's more than likely leaked from the gearbox over time, if it's leaked, then been topped up, then leaked, topped up etc... Then it would easily end up dumping more oil than its actual capacity into the motor. I'd chuck a new seal in the gearbox, clean everything up and carry on. It shouldn't have done any damage. For the seal just search somewhere like simplybearings.com for a matching size, seals and bearings in industrial stuff tend to be fairly generic. Before going too far with things the main thing will be to check that the bed of the lathe isn't overly warn. If it is you'll be fighting the thing forever and it's usually prohibitively expensive to repair. If the bed's good most other stuff's usually pretty fixable.

I've had noisy bearings with no play in the past too. Usually if you hold the suspension spring and spin the wheel you can feel the roughness in the bearing amplified by the springs wobblyness when you can't feel it otherwise. Could be worth a go before messing around with gearboxes. I've had rears sound like fronts and left's sound like rights etc too, so check all 4 before ruling them out.

Thanks guys. It's amazing how much nicer it is to work on on a spit Mike, but it's all too easy to get carried away with the idea of 'if I ever might want to do this, now would be the time as it's so much easier with it in the air'. Danny, basically it's just because the old lot was knackered, I like making stuff and if I'm lucky it might go round corners better now. Not that 924s don't handle well to start with. I've moved the lower arm inner pivots up about 40mm and the ball joint down a similar amount, letting it sit pretty low without putting the roll centre underground (I'm sure you know, but I stumbled across this great explanation of why that matters the other day) I've also made very offset top mounts that give way more caster and push the whole strut assembly outboard without the increased SAI/KPI I'd get from just a lengthened wishbone. I've replaced the steering rack with a mk2 escort quick rack to speed up the steering and make spares easier in the future, and the uprights I've made use yaris rear wheel bearing assemblies and have brake mount's to take mk2/3 golf brakes. So it's now 4x100 (originally 4x108) and brake upgrades will be available off the shelf going forward. The back ends getting a similar treatment; a tube subframe with new arms, tweaked pivot points, Audi S3 rear brakes, mk4 golf front wheel bearings and CV joints etc. I'm essentially just using parts bin stuff to hopefully improve performance while keeping cost (current and servicing) low.

Well this seems to have died so I guess I'd better stop lurking and post something. I finally finished making the bits to bolt the first wheel onto my 924, the wishbone's only temporary until I get more laser cut parts to have another go: Then this weekend I went and collected a pair of seats, then test fitted the drivers one: Might even finish it one day!

Would it cost more than £1000 to get your Mondeo fixed? It can seem silly to spend a car's full value fixing it but buying another ageing cheap car is just resetting the lottery of what could go wrong next. Fixing it on the other hand removes one item from that lottery and leaves you with a car you know you like, you know is mostly good and you know suits your needs.

I think you'll really struggle to get a constant force over a varying distance. I'm fairly sure that the power of attraction varies as an inverse square function of distance, and as such it'll be linear-ish at larger distances, (although relatively weak), but never quite a constant force. I don't believe there's much you could do about this other than using control systems doing something clever with relating the voltage to the distance.

As I was at the unit this evening I had a nose under my friends 240z's bonnet to see what he'd done for his AN lines. He seems to have a line with a barbed fitting onto the fuel filter at one end, and an AN fitting onto a distribution block at the other. I guess if you use -6 so it's 8mm ID, and its a soft hose then you can just not use an AN fitting one end. On the other hand, if you want the fancy bits throughout then the thingy you linked too looks right to me, but I'm going off nothing more than the description! The aforementioned line: And a couple of engine bay shots for good measure, and to show how worth it AN fittings are:

I can't help with formulas or anything, but I've spent a while at work messing around with magnetic locks recently. I tried to do a little research into whether the design of the winding had an effect on the magnetic fields size/strength ratio (we didn't need much strength but needed it to work over a slight distance). I drew a bit of a blank but from what I saw while looking, for the sort of thing you're talking about the calculations didn't look too tricky (depending on the orientation of the rod to the coil.) Sadly I didn't go into it enough to be much help to you though . We were restricted to budget off the shelf part's, so beyond seeing if I could find any trends I didn't need to worry about numbers too much as the products spec sheets told me what I needed to know.

Not usually, but I guess we could save some money on bolts and welding if we switched to self adhesive backed stuff.

Thanks for the nearly 6 year bump, but I'm now nearly 5 years into a different profession. I still need to get stuff cut, but I don't think the average plotter would manage the 304 stainless steel we usually use.

As above really, that should be work for me. There's even a very slight chance of the porsche working around then. I'd have had to bail on this Sunday in the end as life's gone a bit hectic recently and if I'm not working I'll need the time to sort other stuff out.

2019? well, maybe the end of 2018 of I'm lucky! I'm happy to resign myself to the e36 for now. At least it's slightly interesting/modified.

Like Luke, I'm still up for this if other people still are.

I never have much trust in putting a car on 4 axle stands. I tend to go with 2 well placed stands then something more secure. I welded up a sturdy axle stand height tressel that I use if I need to take all 4 wheels off. If 2 can stay on I tend to either just do with work one end at a time or place the other 2 wheels on something; either ramps or an old pair of wheels usually. A decent jack that lifts to a good height and rolls well enough to not drag the car towards you as it goes up is a godsend though. My 318tds now has another 12 months MOT. It only needed one front arm bush (although I changed the pair) and some trimming of the arch liners where the lower offset 5 series wheels were catching, not bad for a 19 year old £600 car that I haven't really touched for a year!

What that guy said. ^ There's no way in hell I'll get the 924 done by then, so I'll be heading up in the e36. I'm still keen for this.

Bike mounts in place:

Looks good Paul. Yeah, they just bolt straight down into the t-tracks in my bars. I'll get some photos on them in use next time I pop out to the unit. (I left them there for the paint to dry.)

I made some super simple but really effective bike mounts for my cars roof bars the other day as a bit of a spur of the moment thing. I'll get some photos of them in use, but basically they just bolt to the channel in my roof bars and the front axle bolts through them. One suits a 20mm, one suits a 15x110 and the last one's a 15x100, to suit my bike and the 2 friends I'd planned a ride with. I might make a couple more soon to cover more combinations of friends bikes. As my car's an estate I can set the roof bars far enough apart that the rear wheel sits on the other bar and just gets strapped straight to it. They've cost me nothing and they're small enough I can throw them in one of the cubby-holes in the boot and bolt them on when needed.

I'm technically a design engineer who doesn't get his hands dirty at work but due to our usual fabricator being on paternity leave I've ended up knocking this together over the last 2 weeks: I was meant to just design it then hand it over to the other guys, but I've ended up doing all the welding/fabricating, helping with installing it (using just a forklift and man-power!) and today I did the concrete screed in the treads. That brewing set-up looks interesting. I need to get my head around automation electronics and programming sometime soon, it'd be bloody handy for work. (and my own projects.)

Thanks for the extra tips guys. I'm happy to say that time's done its job and the laptop's lost it's stench all by its self. I'll be well armed next time I have to take it to a food waste site though! JT, smelling the way it did there would have been no chance of me putting it anywhere near a container meant for food!

What state's it in these days Paul? If any bits off mine could be of use let me know as I'll be reusing very few original bits. Although most of my bits are pretty ropey there's a few that might be useful. I finally got my order placed with Gaz. I should admit I hadn't been chasing them much as I've been mega busy at work helping sort out our new building, and there's been some back and forth to decide on spec, rather than just one call to place an order. A set of their 'gold' coilovers with custom rears to ditch the torsion bars should be arriving in about 4 weeks (made to order).

Thanks mike. The fact they were starting to creep up in price was a fair bit of the nudge I needed to buy mine. I wish I'd bought a less knackered one, but I'm glad I bought one all the same! Still not heard anything from gaz unfortunately. I'm eager to get an order placed and get some dimensions out of them so I can get some laser cut stuff ordered for the suspension arms. Hopefully they'll get in touch soon.

As it's quiet, and most of you have probably forgotten I even have a car, here's a random recent photo of my very much work in progress Porsche 924: Happily I'm basically done with welding up the shell now. All the rust's gone, and there's a cage in it. I still need to sort some damage in the rear quarter, but thats not holding anything else up, so it's time to worry about something to attach some wheels to! I'm talking to Gaz at the moment about some coilovers so I can ditch the torsion bars at the back and make up a new subframe and arms. Should be an interesting little project to have a go at.

First thought would be to check the crank position sensor. When they're on their way out they tend to cause starting and high load issues when hot, plus they're cheap and easily replaced.

Count me in for this. Trying to think back to uni times but the pubs we went to tended not to have parking (because you know, oxford + students). The only one we ever went to with cars was the harvester in Wheatley, it's a generic chain place just off a dual carrageway but wasn't terrible and it's easy to find with plenty of parking. Hopefully someone local will know somewhere better, but I suspect it'll have to be outside oxford it's self. Oxford and parking don't really go together! There's a kart track just off the ring road that's shonky enough to be a good laugh if we were near Oxford and wanted something to do.