The Night Mail

[Mike Bellamy]

7 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

electronic retractable towball

 

??why??

 

 

Thanks to Northmoor above - several reasons there, but the simple answer is that it was on the car when we bought it . However it does mean that you don't crack your shin on it when loading the boot. On the previous car we had a detachable towball but that got covered in crap and the socket got rusted up so the locking mechanism was hard to operate. I guess the problem this time is related to the very wet weather and the exposed position of the fitment behind the bumper - pressing the unlock button made the computer think that it had been released but the towball remained in place activating the alarm as the locking pin hadn't moved. According to the info I found on Google, there are no user serviceable parts and so I expect a sizable bill when I get home and it goes in to be fixed properly.

 

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[BR60103]

I remember hearing that diesel buses in Canada were left running all winter if they couldn't go into a garage.  I came out from a subway station to the bus bays and the passage underneath was full of fumes as some of the bays were storing idling buses for the weekend.

 

We've had our car now over a year and I haven't looked up how to open the hood (bonnet).

 

[jjb1970]

On names, I worked for a power plant manager who was known as Ironside as he never left his chair. He was oblivious to the plant outside his office. Most of the time I didn't mind it as it meant me (ops manager) and the engineering manager were left to get on with it but it was annoying when we needed a decision from the site manager and he had a pathological aversion to anything which would tie him to anything. 

 

Another one was a chief engineer on containerships called Doc, deaf old ****. He was actually a good guy if a bit cantankerous, I liked him. The company had a second engineer called hit man and another called vicious John who were horrible people. I sailed with them a lot ad many engineers in the company refused to sail with them after doing one trip with them. 

[Northmoor]

3 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

On names, I worked for a power plant manager who was known as Ironside as he never left his chair. He was oblivious to the plant outside his office. Most of the time I didn't mind it as it meant me (ops manager) and the engineering manager were left to get on with it but it was annoying when we needed a decision from the site manager and he had a pathological aversion to anything which would tie him to anything. 

 

Another one was a chief engineer on containerships called Doc, deaf old ****. He was actually a good guy if a bit cantankerous, I liked him. The company had a second engineer called hit man and another called vicious John who were horrible people. I sailed with them a lot ad many engineers in the company refused to sail with them after doing one trip with them. 

In my first job after graduation we had a Senior Manager who wasn't very tall but quite argumentative.  Responsible for a project which built a third-scale frigate, he was known in polite conversation as the Third-Scale Grade 7.  In less polite ones, as Thrush, because he was an irritating..... well I'll let you fill in the rest.

[Happy Hippo]

5 hours ago, BR60103 said:

I remember hearing that diesel buses in Canada were left running all winter if they couldn't go into a garage.  I came out from a subway station to the bus bays and the passage underneath was full of fumes as some of the bays were storing idling buses for the weekend.

 

We've had our car now over a year and I haven't looked up how to open the hood (bonnet).

 

How do you top up the screen wash reservoir which is invariably located under the hood?

[jjb1970]

Running engines at idle is never a good idea. Poor combustion efficiency which leads to high emissions and increased maintenance. I would also note high fuel use, but that's a bit superfluous if an engine in idling.

 

Cold starts are also not good, the bigger engines need to be kept hot to start. Jacket water quality control is also important, it's not just anti-freeze but corrosion inhibitors, scale inhibitors etc. I once had to do a cold start on a Mirlees K Major (big engine for almost no power but virtually bomb proof) and it was quite an experience.  Getting it started was hard enough, then the noises were painful to listen to, the engine room was a smokey have as the manifold needed to warm up to seal, ditto water leaks until the engine warmed up. Probably knocked hundreds if not thousands of hours off the time for a major overhaul.

[Northmoor]

37 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

How do you top up the screen wash reservoir which is invariably located under the hood?

I think it's the Audi A2 where it's topped up through an opening in the front grille.  The bonnet has to be opened by an approved garage or you void the warranty.

[Winslow Boy]

12 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I think it's the Audi A2 where it's topped up through an opening in the front grille.  The bonnet has to be opened by an approved garage or you void the warranty.

That would be like the indicators then.

[Happy Hippo]

14 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I think it's the Audi A2 where it's topped up through an opening in the front grille.  The bonnet has to be opened by an approved garage or you void the warranty.

No good taking one on a UK driving test then, as one of the pre drive tests is ensuring the person taking the test knows how to open the bonnet.

 

Perhaps I will write to the DVSA and demand that Audis be added to the list of those vehicles in which taking a driving test is forbidden

[jjb1970]

I like Audi's, unfortunately some of the people driving them have caused them to have an image problem but the cars are very good. We had an A6 with the 190hp 2.0 diesel and DSG gear box and it was great. 

Apart from the gear box needing to be replaced under warranty.  The car hire company contracted to provide replacement cars was very apologetic in not having an A6 at their local depot and asked if I was willing to take a KIA Stinger while they sourced an A6. I asked what a Stinger was and was assured it's a very nice car, I think you'll like it. I called them back the next day and agreed to keep the Stinger until my own car was repaired as it was a terrific car. 

[Happy Hippo]

Yesterday saw Gordon come around for another session in the garage.

 

As part of the cassette expansion plan, we also needed to address the issue of rail expansion on the 3 foot long cassettes.  When we were at Welshpool last year, we did notice they the track got a bit wavy.  This was because the rail is soldered to  copper clad plates at each end, so and expansion is going to cause wavy rails.

 

Yesterday we made up some more cassette bases and then went to the  stack of existing cassettes and removed the offenders.

 

Rather than try and cut the rail in-situ, they were desoldered, split in half, a fraction trimmed off  when the rail was cut with a disc and then cleaned up.

 

Fishplates were inserted to keep the rail ends in line and some bridging wires soldered in to ensure the current flowed without interruption.  Then it was a simple(?) task to realign the track and solder the outer ends back to their copper clad plates.

 

To make sure the track stayed in line, it was given a couple of dabs of hot glue around the sleepers in the centre of the cassette.

 

I will continue with the metal work of the new build cassettes for part of the morning, but I am aware that my services will also be required in the garden.

 

At least the weather is being kind at present

Edited July 19 by Happy Hippo

[PhilJ W]

8 hours ago, BR60103 said:

I remember hearing that diesel buses in Canada were left running all winter if they couldn't go into a garage. 

The problem with diesel oil is that in cold weather it turns from liquid to wax and blocks injectors etc. Modern diesel fuel has inhibitors added to stop that happening. The old time lorry drivers trick to prevent it happening was to add a gallon of petrol to every ten gallons of diesel. 

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, Northmoor said:

I think it's the Audi A2 where it's topped up through an opening in the front grille.  The bonnet has to be opened by an approved garage or you void the warranty.

 

They don't want you to find out that its powered by a team of gerbils on a treadmill?

 

[polybear]

51 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

The problem with diesel oil is that in cold weather it turns from liquid to wax and blocks injectors etc. Modern diesel fuel has inhibitors added to stop that happening. The old time lorry drivers trick to prevent it happening was to add a gallon of petrol to every ten gallons of diesel. 

 

In the mid 80's (and still?) countries such as Italy have a special Diesel (Diesel Inverno) for winter use.

 

 

 

 

[jjb1970]

The big engines running on HFO have recirculating fuel injectors so hot fuel is circulated around them when shut down.

 

The big slow speed two stroke engines are quote impressive. In Class I witnessed tests where they were started without the auxiliary blowers. In normal service they need auxiliary blowers which are basically just electrically driven superchargers to aspirate the engine until the turbocharger spin up to blow enough air into the engine. Without the blowers the engines can't really run. I witnessed starting on the test bed and it sounded horrendous and it took forever to get up to speed where the turbos kicked in. You wouldn't do that very often and still have a working engine. 

 

The railway example of that is the Fell. Perhaps the most maligned diesel locomotive ever built. Many laugh at it, but if you want a mech drive (a big iff) then using engine driven auxiliary blowers to control engine power-torque characteristics is a perfectly valid approach.

[Winslow Boy]

3 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

They don't want you to find out that its powered by a team of gerbils on a treadmill?

 

It's not the gerbils you need to worry about but the pigmy hippo 'encouraging' them to run that concerns me.

[PupCam]

On 18/07/2024 at 00:27, BSW01 said:

I’ve just remembered another

BIFFO

Big Ignorant F@#ker From Oldham 

 

I may have been known as Biffo in the past for reasons we don't need to advertise on a public forum.   I'd just like to say:

 

I'm not Big, I'm not a F@#ker, I'm definitely not from Oldham and hopefully not ignorant (but you will have to be the final arbiters on that)!

 

 

23 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

I think that knowledge of car systems and operating is severely limited these days. The last time I took Jill's car in for servicing I was given a courtesy car that I soon realised had duff synchromesh on 2nd gear. No problem, thinks I, just have to double de-clutch when shifting down. When I dropped the car back at the garage later I told the 'technician' about the problem and added, "So you have to double declutch changing down." He looked at me blankly. "You have to what?" he asked.

 

That sorts out the men from the boys although that phrase is probably not acceptable or PC these days.  Do I look like a person that cares that much about that?

 

My 1957 Austin 7 (MIni) had a synchromush gearbox so I got quite good at double de-clutching!

 

ION

 

Just for fun (and to become incensed) I've been watching some of the time shifted, live streamed Post Office inquiry proceedings.   I have to say various witnesses have got a far better memory of their professional activities over a decade ago than I have of mine!      I can barely remember the projects I was working on let alone details of who was at a particular meeting and what they said!   Are they super-human or is my memory even worse than I thought?

 

 

 

 

Edited July 19 by PupCam

[SM42]

Luckily the weather is good as we are off to an open air concert tonight.

 

It's a Queen tribute band. 

 

Short trousers and insect repellant at the ready. 

 

Andy

[Happy Hippo]

18 minutes ago, SM42 said:

Luckily the weather is good as we are off to an open air concert tonight.

 

It's a Queen tribute band. 

 

Short trousers and insect repellant at the ready. 

 

Andy

Surely short trousers for an AC/DC concert?

 

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, PupCam said:

Just for fun (and to become incensed) I've been watching some of the time shifted, live streamed Post Office inquiry proceedings.   I have to say various witnesses have got a far better memory of their professional activities over a decade ago than I have of mine!      I can barely remember the projects I was working on let alone details of who was at a particular meeting and what they said!   Are they super-human or is my memory even worse than I thought?

A colleague of mine is the son of one of the prosecuted sub-postmasters.  By tweaking his working hours he has been able to attend a lot of the enquiry.  Talking with him we concluded how remarkably selective the memory was of so many senior people in the Post Office.  They had excellent recall of how they'd met the criteria for substantial bonuses or why they were recommended for gongs, often years earlier.  However, their memory of making decisions that led to a significant proportion of their employees being prosecuted for fraud, seemed so much less impressive.  How very inconvenient........

[rockershovel]

I had a Ford Kuga at one time, my sons liked it much more than I did. That had a fixed towbar... one thing I learnt the hard way was that leaving the tailgate up for several hours as a sunshade at a grass track meeting had the effect of depleting the battery to the point of needing to replace it. The RAC man couldn't explain it but said he had seen it several times. 

 

A propos Mirrlees engines, the quiet excellent Prickwillow Drainage Museum has one. Apparently they run the engines on the last Sunday of the month....

[figworthy]

12 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

How do you top up the screen wash reservoir which is invariably located under the hood?

 

I'll start by saying that I know how to open my bonnet.

 

However, I haven't refilled the washer reservoir in years.  The last few (three ?) cars that I've had have had large enough reservoirs that they last between services.

 

Which reminds me.  Many years ago (scratches bonce, hmm early 90s), one of my colleagues was a young blond woman who might have been over 5ft with her shoes on.  She related the tale of making sure that the reservoir on her car was regularly filled, and was done so immediately before the MOT.  When she collected the car, she noted that the bill included topping up the screen wash.  "Ah yes madam, we had to top it up after testing the washers". 

 

Big Mistake.

 

Whilst she might not have had much of a physical presence, one of her hobbies appeared to be verbally disembowelling those who incurred her displeasure, such as garages thinking she was a dumb blonde (anyone working with her quickly found out that she was anything but dumb).  The refill charge was quickly removed from the bill.

 

Adrian

[figworthy]

A discussion that took place earlier today in another place suggested that Vegemite might be useful as a bear repellent (amongst other things - none of which involved eating it).  As we have ursine residents here, I thought I'd ask if this is the case.

 

Adrian

[Dave Hunt]

1 hour ago, PupCam said:

That sorts out the men from the boys although that phrase is probably not acceptable or PC these days.  Do I look like a person that cares that much about that?

 

My 1957 Austin 7 (MIni) had a synchromush gearbox so I got quite good at double de-clutching!

 

 A couple of years ago No. 2 son was telling me about trying to get a friend's car home after the clutch linkage failed. I said that if he could have got it started by getting a push or rolling downhill it would have been possible to drive the car providing he didn't have to stop. No. 2 asked how he could change gear without using the clutch and refused to believe me when I said it was perfectly possible and was just a case of matching engine rpm with road speed so I ended up taking him out in my car and demonstrated going up and down through the box without touching the clutch. He was intrigued and got me to teach him how to do it and DiL tells me that he is now quite proud of his skill and has shown off to several of his mates.

 

Dave