RobinJI

Should work fine, I've had bikes in various ages of Passat upright with the front wheel out. You may struggle with the DH bike upside down, my bike was boarderline with 160mm forks. Upright with the forks tucked down between the front/rear seats should be no problem though.

Not read this yet, but I'll give it a proper look as soon as I've got time. I went around a lot of the WWI sites when I was in School, a few of your pictures defintiely jog my memory, but I don't remember that much of it now, it was one of my favorite school trips by far, and something I'd love to retrace and remember more of. The war's are something I find very interesting, mostly the technology/building/effects on the landscape, but the history of it's fascinating too. If you do any trips within the UK I'd love to tag along, I'm fascinated by all this sort of stuff. In fact I got bored the other day and started retracing the "Taunton Stop Line" (a defensive line that runs along a now defunct rail-way line near me, basically you can drive from the south to the north coast and never go more than about half a mile without seeing a pill-box/line of AT bollards/other evidence.) (The sound mirrors at Denge are a something I NEED to visit sometime, along with plenty of other stuff. Bear me in mind if you do any other trips.)

I remember Port and Starboard by the length of the words. 'Red', 'port' and 'left' are all shorter than 'green', 'starboard' and 'right'. I guess the main thing's that it's short, and not going to make you have to think about it, and also clear as to which was said. I've done a small amount of co-driving and you do have to be seriously clear, as the driver's got a lot to think about! Passat looks and sounds great Tic, I do like B5/5.5 Passats. Tell your friend to make sure he gets a Passat not an A4, as much as I liked my old A4, every time I saw a Passat I was annoyed by how much bigger their boot was. I'm feeling the want for an estate massively at the moment. I'm getting back into mountain-biking more properly, and something I can sling the bike in easier would be amazing. Still, I'm too attached to the 'rocco to sell it for now, and moving puts a second car out of the picture for the time being, so I'll have to make do for now.

Like I specifically said, I wasn't accusing anyone of anything, I know you didn't say they were, and even if you had, it would have clearly been an honest mistake, hence why I explained I only pointed out the miss-match out of my own curiosity I just don't get what a bevel gear was doing in Nicks box? Was it just knocking around in the bottom having climbed in out of loneliness? (If you're interested, this is what's inside an 02j, and this is what a quaif diff looks like inside. With a normal helical gear bolted on as a crownwheel, I can't work out where a bevel gear comes into it, unless it's from the the open diff that came out before he used the box?)

All I know about the gearbox debate is that my car has one, and that those pictures weren't 1st and 2nd from Nicks box, ones a bevel gear, so can't be anything to do with Nicks gearbox, it's a transverse gearbox with an ATB differental, I'm 99% certain it doesn't contain any bevel gears. (Before any toys get thrown, I'm not accusing anyone of anything, just pointing out something that confused me, out of my own curiosity if nothing else.) Is there any way the co-driver could say 'me' and 'you' instead of 'left' and 'right'? Might be an easy way around it?

Alex, that video's insane, and does look like amazing fun! As Adam says though, sod that with that little practice! Not even slightly, I'd be seriously pissed off if someone did that. A quick phone-call and I wouldn't have the slightest issue with them taking it out, assuming they're insured and they chucked some fuel in it, but taking it without asking's not on at all.

It's more a case of if it leaks fluid onto the friction surfaces Like you say, a drop in clutch hydraulic pressure won't cause slip, it'll cause crunchy gears.

Wheels should look awesome on there. I'm seriously tempted by an LPG'd 940/60 as my next daily. What are they like for boot space? I know 'effing massive' is about right, but for the size of the car, I wasn't actually that impressed with my 240, as the boot floor was pretty high, which limited things a little, meaning there wasn't actually much more space than my Passat. I'm guessing 940's must be fairly similar as they're pretty much the same under the floor aren't they?

Scirocco looks cool, must get around to making mine look a little more standard. Or at least loose the silly wheel colour! I've got some spare 60mm springs if they're any use to you? (Well I think they're 60mm ones, they came on my Scirocco, but because the shocks were blown I replaced the whole lot with coilovers.) It wasn't actually those gears that killed Nick's box by the way, although they're not ideal, it was one of the crown-wheel bolts working loose and coming into contact with the casing that actually signed its death warrant. Seems like sound advice to put up-rated oil in there. Also yeah, George, as Jardo says, a fair bit of your old engine ended up going in my Scirocco, I think I might even have your box in it, unless yours was the one Jardos dad re-built?

It probably would have topped out in the 60's, but Jardo's car's had the rev limiter moved up a noticeable amount, I think they're about 6500 as standard, where as his looks to be at about 7200, giving him a few MPH extra.

Very cool. Really nice car. I keep seeing a tidy 3.0S driving the other way on my way home from work, always a neck-craning moment! With regards to the fibreglass side of things, it's a shame you're not closer or my work could potentially be a bit of a help. With regards to the engine, I saw this a couple of weeks ago: Which resides in this: And puts out 540bhp and over 600ft/lb of torque. Hint-hint

I take it that when attached properly and done up tight you have the 2 forward mounting points spread out as much as possible yeah Jardo? If so, those front mounting points are taking just as much load as the end at the shock, and if not, your ARB's doing sod all. Not saying the mountings are insufficient, (if I remember right they only come with big U bolts as standard don't they?) Just that they're not under any less stress than the rear mounts.

Basically just take the strut off whole, clamp it solidly in a well mounted vice then knock the collars in every direction with a hammer, going right around them, hitting them up and down, just trying to work them about and break up the corrosion, so back and forth in every direction. No particularly hard hits, just lots of gentle ones with it held well so it feels the full force of it. Then start beating the top collar anti-clockwise (viewed from above) with a punch, I've always found the top collar's much easier to start moving again, then the lower one the same direction (so moving them both up) to free it off. Move them up 10mm or so then go to town with a wire brush before you do anything. Obviously it's best to have them soaking in some penetrating oil for a day or 2 before. (Proper penetrating oil like plusgas etc not WD40.) Never failed for me yet.

Those spacers are fine for 20+mm, just make sure the bolts are in most of the thickness of the spacer, so they stop within a couple of mm off the back of it when torqued up. As Jardo says, 20mm is sort of boarderline as to whether they're worth while or not, I'd happily run either longer bolts or bolt on adapters. Anything under 20mm's too thin for the threads unless they're steel, anything over 20mm is a bit sketchy as you end up with super long bolts. I used to have 15mm FK Porsche adapters on the Scirocco that were alloy, the threads pulled out of a couple of the holes after a while which was sketchy to say the least, particularly as I'm really fussy about wheel bolt torques and I'd cut the bolts especially to be as long as possible. Quick-rack's good news Jardo, I wish there was an easy/cheap option for one in the Scirocco. I hope the front end's not up in the air compared to the back now! I've usually found that the easiest way to get seized coilover's turning again's to take the strut off and hold it in a vice so you can shock the collars properly. Not failed to work yet.

I've got a tub of mould release wax here that I keep meaning to try out on the car. It certainly makes moulds nice and shiny and water replant, plus it's bloody tough, and cheap. Trouble is, the Scirocco's paint's so crap I'm not sure it'll help anything.

Glad to see the A3's working again. A wing sounds like a fairly good plan, I'd probably be looking at a diffuser first though. Even though a diffuser coming off a stock underside's probably not going to work cleanly and nicely to give any real downforce, it should remove the majority of the problem areas giving lift under there. A3's are pretty slippery for a hatchback, it'd be a shame to ruin that with a BGW. Completely understand where you're coming from with keeping a few creature comforts. It's what I plan to do with the Scirocco when it's no longer a daily. Stripped and track ready, but not purely a racing car. Speaking of BGW's, my old MX-5 was at Combe on Saturday along with some other stuff: Can you tell I was practicing panning shots Must sort through my photos from Sunday at Wiscombe too.

I think I'm right in saying that anything over 1.5x the speed limit has potential for a ban. You may get off light with a ban of just a couple of weeks and a fine with no points, good luck with it.

I'd love to make my own furniture, and I probably will do when I get a chance, but I don't have anywhere near the time to right now. Maybe one day. Both my parents used to be furniture makers, so I'm not short of tools or advice! A couple of awful phone pictures of stuff my mum's made (well, the chair was my mum and dad I think.) They're not very modern, but then they are all at least 20 years old:

Haha, fair enough. OK, I plan to follow your suggestion rather than your example then. Well maybe example, fully furnished would be nice, but unlikely as we'll be looking at 2/3 bedroom houses (sharing with mates.)

Haha, Yeah, I don't have a clue my self, just got recommended them by him earlier as I'm looking to move soon. He's generally got a decent eye for when things are cheap shit, and seemed impressed by it. I very much plan to follow Muels example though, I'll be raiding all the families attics, sheds and garages when the time comes! (I guess it helps that both my parents used to be furniture makers though, it's one thing we don't tend to be short of!)

A colleague who's moving at the moment was recommending The Range to me earlier. There's one in Exeter, and their website shows quite a few options for that sort of money. (Link)

I popped up to Combe today to watch the action day up there. Good day and some fun looking stuff out on track. I took a load of pictures but most were crap thanks to a 'who can pan with the slowest shutter speed' competition. We got down to 1/8th of a second, shooting at about 100mm with no stabilising, many crap photos in the process though! The bonus being I'm now consistant at ~50/60th, where as I used to only dare try 150ish. Of to Wiscombe to watch the hillclimb there tomorrow, so I'll probably sort all the photos and stick them up at once. Pete, the Volvo looks good. Needs more lows though Jolfa, the Audi looks awesome too, looks perfectly clean to me! Then again my car cleaning method is basically a bucket, a sponge and some cheap 'car shampoo' stuff. I've given up on any real attempts as my car's about 15 different shades of white, so even when done properly it stills looks crap, plus the paints starting to polish through in places. Ah well, it's fun to drive and 99.9% of people who see it will never notice!

No, do it

My old room was about as good deal as I could find in Oxford. It was £370 per month including all bills (as in broadband, TV licence and everything.), with parking and on the right side of Oxford for the BMW stuff. (Assuming you'll be at the Cowley plant, it's only about a 10 minute cycle away.) Can let you know my landlords number if you want? He may well have a spare room over the summer and be glad to fill it. Not really sure what else you could do. The halls connected to the Oxford Brookes Headington campus could be worth trying to see what they say. Good luck with it. (I just added you to the Oxford Brookes Mountainbiking facebook page, figured it might be of some use.)