forteh

See I'm not as stupid as I look

Nope, been using it for close to 30 years though, I used it to strip the engine on my 1936 Norton, I was 11 and it had sat in a barn for 25 years. Every single bolt came free. My mate was rebuilding the suspension on his mk4 prelude and couldn't shift anything under there, gave him my tin and he had it all off in a day.

Plusgas, soak it over a number of days, hammer an undersized 12 point socket on and go careful. Ideally you want the socket to engage with decent steel not soft rust, failing that file a new hex head on and use a six point. edit: or just wang a good pair of molegrips on there after soaking it in plusgas. Trust the plusgas though, I've seen it take out bolts that would otherwise have sheared off as soon as torque was applied.

My dad passed away from a pulmonary embolison on 21st October, he had been suffering the downwards spiral of Alzheimer's for that last 10 years and had been in a care home for the last 4 months of his life. His short term memory was shot to hell but he still had his faculties and the old him would still surface regularly. To go out instantly, with no pain or knowledge of it was absolutley the best possible outcome he could have had It was his funeral yesterday and I learnt some pretty awesome stuff about him: - He met my mum whilst racing his Vincent, he had put an advert out in the Vincent owners club for a race mechanic and my uncle Richard volunteered (he worked in aerospace and built parts of the hubble telescope). My mum obviously tagged along with her older brother and one thing led to another When he 12 he was a chorister growing up in south london, he was on the roster to sing in westminster abbey at the Queen's coronation in 1953 but got struck down with chickenpox the day before! My mum has his attendance certificate (although he wasn't there) and his original annotated musical score book. His maternal grandfather was one E H (Teddy) Parker who captained the Camp Hill rugby team for 17 seasons straight and scored their first ever try as a club aged 17. The annual Aston Old Eds vs Camp Hill derby is called the Teddy Parker Cup in his name

A gas lense gives better laminar flow of the gas to give a more stable shield at lower flow rates. Can't quite tell if that's a mesh screen or a lense element. Google it edit: https://www.millerwelds.com/resources/article-library/gas-lens-basics-for-tig-gtaw-applications

Cup or gas lense?

Half a Mars bar and a handful of ginger Labrador fluff?

I have hope organics in my minis (silver 2 part calipers from the previous generation) and they work great, took ages to bed in though as I didn't have a long enough descent to get enough heat into them. Only use the rear now because... ...I use some barradine sintered pads for the front hope dh4, they bedded in almost immediately and work exceptionally well. They cost me 2.50 a set of pads because they were new old stock at Tredz. Using 203 front and 180 rear, I've found that getting the pad material transferred over to the disk is the sweet spot of when they start to work well, ensuring the pads are hitting the disk square and even is also essential.

Presume you were pointing this at me regarding the van? Swad isn't far away, however it's not 1/2" mile from my house so I can't just chuck a bike in the back and ride home Originally we had allowed for the raptor coating in the budget for the build but then went and bought a newer, more expensive van to start from so then figured that we would get it built and then repainted when we've saved up. However the right way to do it would be to get the bodywork and coating sorted before we put the windows in then drip feed the last few bits in as we buy them. Fortunately we do still have enough in the pot to afford the bodywork to be done and still buy most of the large cost items to get it campervan ready. Only things that will have to wait a couple of months are the solar charging/leisure battery and the night heater, the interior woodwork will come from desposible income as I have most of the timber in stock so it'll be consumables more than anything

Well following on from my slightly dented sliding door... I visited a couple of body shops in Lichfield to look at the nominal cost to sort it out so we can raptor at a later date. The repairs are beyond my lack of experience and TB was right, I would be spending money at trying to do the job myself and not be happy with the result. First place quoted 700 to knock out, fill and blow over in the current colour. Bearing in mind we would still have to raptor it all afterwards and had been quoted 1200 to do so. Second place, the boss had a look, I explained that the final goal was to raptor it once the conversion was a bit more progressed and funds were available. He said that they've just finished a raptor van and with that I asked him how much to sort the dents and coat it from the outset. Bearing in mind I still have to cut windows and vents in and it makes sense to get it coated before the bits are bonded on. I told him that we've been quoted 1200 and two days to coat it, he said not a chance, he'd put 5 days labour into the job and would be removing all the bits rather than just masking over them. Quoted 1950 all in, sorting all the dents, coating the metalwork and also doing all of the plastics. Added bonus he'll let me use a spare bay for a couple of days to cut out the windows in the warm and dry! tl:dr we're sorting the van bodywork properly and ruining the remaining build budget

About time you constructed a motorised turntable isn't it?

With the light grind (literally tickling the room with a 1mm cutting disk) my heatsinks are pretty horrific noise wise but bite and hold is incredible. I use a bb7 up front to deal with hills and quiet speed control.

Heatsink yellows* or whites* on a smooth rim work very well when dry, put a light grind on there and you have a 100% all weather brake. *I'm old and out of touch with this trials lark and there might be 1000 other pads on the market now but they're absolutely superb. The way I was taught back in '99ish was to turn circles with the handlebars as you do tiny hops on the rear wheel. Best to be comfortable with being up on the balance point and stationary on the rear wheel, the more vertical you can get the bike the easier it is, keep your elbows bent and the bars as close to your chest as you can; ideally you want to be able to support near to 100% of your weight on the pedals alone, this allows your arms to give the turning input. To turn clockwise flick the bars clockwise as you hop and vice versa, note that the hop is more controlled if it's without any pedal input, all of the movement should initially come from your hips and pedal input can come later when you're more familiar with the basics

I'm the wrong side of 40 now (only by 5 months mind) and I must admit that I've not ridden the trials bike in anger for far too long, got to be 5-6 years easily. I don't think I would have any issues with riding multiple times a week (assuming there was time to do so) once the base level muscle fitness had returned but it wouldn't be close to the 4-5 hours a day I used to ride in my 20s. Didn't @Stan Shaw used to state that riding pure/natural trials was one of the biggest calorie burners?

From what I've read it's all in the prep work, which is why I'll be paying someone else with experience to do it

Ghillie suit, they never see him there!

Yup, all the better to hide minor issues with bodywork

I should point out that I have never dented a vehicle before, just I don't bother to find time to keep it washed and paint protected as best I could do Raptor is pretty much indestructable so I can happily scrub the van down with a yard broom and a bucket of soapy water when it needs cleaning

Raptor suits my regime of car bodywork care, in otherwords it doesn't get much care It will cover the previous owner decal marks and eliminate the need to care for the paint with regards to scratches and scuffs. I can push 1 out with my fingers but it pops back in, might just cut a chunk of wood that I can bond and wedge in (its behind an open internal rib) which will make it spot on. I'm going to see if the local shop can pull them mostly out but I'm not expecting it to be within budget, it's always worth exploring all options, not ruled out a new door but this one is completely rot free and sound apart from the dents. Are the PDR glue tabs flexible? Any mileage in making a set of nylon/steel plates up at work that I can stick on and use rods/slidehammer to manipulate the steel? In all honesty I would prefer to not have to filler it so PDR would be ideal but I'm under no illusions that getting it perfect will be nigh on impossible

A replacement door starts at 200 quid which would then need paint (admittedly if we're raptor coating this is a moot point). Pictures are in order:- Back half of the door, accessible from inside so should push out fine with some tapping. Front edge of door by filler cap, blind so no tapping it out, think this is likely a filler dent. Front edge of the door partially accessible by removing the internal door handle so might tap out ok. Offside dent on a seam, think it's been previously cleaned up a little but needs attention as the paint is cracked. Not accessible as it's on an internal rib.

I have looked at the PDR glue tabs but not bought any yet because too be honest I don't know if they'll do the job. The majority of the denting is within the front 10 inches of the sliding door (drivers shoulder barging the door to close it) so close to the panel edge and the door frame so might be pretty stiff. Did you just use bog standard glue and go at it with a slide hammer? Do you have any links or recommendations for the PDR kit/tabs?

Well it's a perfect learning opportunity In reality beating the dents out might not work too well and it might be a case of just filling it, I'm sure someone would be able to get them out but I don't really have bodyshop kind of budget to get it 100%.

Car fixing peoples I've bought me lwb merc sprinter to convert to a campervan, it's a 14 plate with 228k on the clocks, ex-courier so some minor bumps, mainly to the sliding door. We're eventually planning on getting it raptor coated when funds allow, but in the mean time I would like to try to pull/smooth over the dents and then make it look about the right colour. I'm not hugely precious about the paintwork so a decent enough rattlecan over the top would be sufficient till we can raptor it. Who can offer advice, or indeed, is anyone local good at straightening out minor push in dents and fancies a bit of playing in return for biscuits and perhaps half a mars bar? Not looking at @dann2707 or @Tom Booth honest

Was this pointed at me? The race was good, bloody hard work and highlighted a load of issues with the car! Good points: - It didn't fall apart or need any actual maintenance during the 7 hours driving. It handles really well, steers straight hands free and grip in abundance with minimal effort on the steering. It was pretty comfy. Bad points: - It's heavy, the plan is to run the chassis through fea in solidworks and introduce speedholes. There's too much rolling resistance, I think it's the constantly running final chain and rear axle bearing alignment. It's sitting very high, aerodynamically it's a snail, that didn't affect us at the speeds we were travelling but if we are aiming to get faster then it needs addressing now. The lack of differential wasn't a huge issue with scrubbing tyres, however I think it was killing our corner speeds as momentum seems to be everything. Looking to split the rear axle and have a twin freewheel setup or design a ball differential to go in there. When out on track it was a constant push just to keep it up to speed and us being middleaged unfit blokes it was ok for the first 10 mins then fatigue set in quite quickly. Out of 21 teams, we came 15th with 222 laps completed, fastest lap was 86 seconds @ 15mph, average speed over the 7 hours was 12mph. For reference, the winning teams fastest lap was 55 seconds I had a quick play in the winning car and it was an absolute weapon, so very quick and light I bet you could built an awesome car, give us a yell if you want to bounce ideas around. edit: on the winning team, one of the drivers commutes 400 miles a week on his recumbent bike, he was pushing 30-40 minutes sessions at a constant 90rpm cadence. Once he was done bombing round the track all day long he then went and cycled 35km home in the dark

Have you tried turning it off and back on again taking it out and putting it back in again?