big jim

Now seems an appropriate time to drop this to lighten the mood The Chinese, a great bunch of lads!

the embellishments on those locos were added by a former work colleague of mine at DRS who used to be a fitter at thornaby, Russ P will probably know who I’m talking about I remember him saying he got a right rollicking for those 5 37s as they shouldn’t have had the white stripes but he had some paint left over from doing the tyre walls! anything ‘oddball’ out of Thornaby was his doing on a night shift, large numbers on various 37s and 47s, yellow stripes on the chemical 47’s, pimped up 20s the lot, I could listen to some of his tales for hours, one of my favourites being the original number 3s on 47363 ‘Billingham Enterprise’ being upside down (narrow at the bottom) Not my pic, click on for Flickr link quite simply he cut the numbers out of vinyl on his kitchen table and put the template the wrong way in relation to the sticky side and only noticed once he had finished! it was nice to put a human face and back story to the things that you remember seeing as a kid out spotting that made the day special such as an unusual livery in a sea of br blue, as for the story of the ‘Grimsby prawn peeler’ he picked up while out on the pull that was like listening to something from a chubby brown routine but in real life

Dicky, do you have a layout thread, really want to see more of it!

I say, letting a woman drive! know your limits

bap

Only one from last night, ballast bescot to rugby, first time I’ve had this loco I think back in Saturday to do the opposite trip and move a couple of locos from hams hall to bescot

This might be me when mine turns up tomorrow!

My youngest went out with his chalks yesterday and made a mario kart track around the block with start line, (Drawn on) jumps, bonus boxes, direction arrows, finish line etc. bit of a weird one this week as it’s 1/2 term but it certainly doesn’t feel like it apart from the eldest has no on line schoolwork to do

never to see the mainline again I suspect going by how it looked 12 months ago!

It was the countryman not a clubman sorry, and yes it was small suv sized i had the above 19 plate cooper as a hire car the other month and inside it was no bigger than my car as the pillars are a lot thicker, more crash protection etc, nice car though but for £20k I’d keep my mini and pay off my mortgage

Phew, not then cooler but The o ring on the oil filter had gone in kinked! could have proved disastrous had I gone to work in it without stopping off en route as it lost about 1/2 litre of oil in 40 miles

Normal service has been resumed!

I hope you got a mini me https://www.modelu3d.co.uk/product/1102/ I’ll have to get me another one as the one I have is currently relaxing in a Bachmann colas 66

I can’t find too much info On line but it says in one article the engine is mounted about 6 inches lower than the engines original position

Some from earlier crewe with the TFW MK4 set on test Light engine 67 passing it Colas 66 on a long marsden to Carlisle wagon move, new logos on it too Pendolino And later in the evening in Leamington spa my train back to crewe 66744 leading

if you compare mine to an original mini yes it looks huge but compare the latest mini to mine and mine looks tiny i had a clubman 4 wheel drive as a hire car last year and that was as big as my wife’s murano! since I took the pics I reversed the car and found a big puddle of clean oil under it, showed my mechanic some pics and vid of it dripping and did a FaceTime vid while under the front of the car and it appears one of the seals on the oil cooler we were hoping to save changing until he does the sump gasket has gone, so that’s it back to him tomorrow for fixing again the joys of an old modern car

And she’s back, lowered and new exhaust, rides surprisingly well, not crashy at all over bumps as I was expecting it to be the exhaust is spot on too, slightly quieter in the cabin than the last one so you hear the supercharger whine more (which also had a smaller pulley fitted I’ve come away with a Stainless steel performance manifold too, needs a new flexi welding in but once done my mechanic will fit that for me as well as a couple of outstanding jobs before it’s trip to 1320 mini

It’s surprising just how many different things biffa has been used on, I’ve had it loads of times on various jobs, still yet to drive a Scotsman one though ive succumbed to temptation and just ordered 66789 (without sound), I’ll upgrade it to sound via Legoman at some point here’s hoping I get a good one

As long as it doesn’t sound like one!

whatever it is it looks like it’s got a VW beetle rear side window/roofline

Cheers for that, ohlens do some good too camber adjusters, lots of places do rear control arms, not had a look at any other braces or anti roll bars etc, as you say you can throw thousands at the suspension! When I got the bilsteins off eBay, at the same time a set of AP coilivers came up for £500 or best offer, I was watching both but the APs went first, they came with the adjustable camber plates and adjustable rear arms but I couldn’t afford them at the time, had they stayed on sale a couple of weeks longer I could have afforded them after payday!

I dread to think If I added it up exactly, including having a new gearbox and servicing I should imagine £4k worth of work and parts, and most of the parts were cheap off eBay too i only paid £1000 for the car but as my mechanic said I could have paid 3 times that for one from a dealer and had the same issues he found when he had it in needing lots of work I probably could have bought a newer ready tuned JCW cooper S for what I’ve spent but I’ve got the satisfaction of having it the way I want it if I had the money I’d have this..... https://www.coastalcarcentre.co.uk/used-mini-hatch-john-cooper-works-lancaster-lancashire-2477915 saying that if I was going to spend that much on a car it would be a phaeton and keep the cooper S as a toy

I may look at getting some adjustable camber plates for the front struts one day and maybe some adjustable rear control arms but as it’s my every day commute car I don’t want to go too mad with it I fitted some eibach springs to my convertible, totally ruined the drive so I took them back off after a few weeks And put the originals back on The ECU on the mini one is the same as a cooper but it’s limited by only opening the throttle to 70%, the superchip opens the throttle to 100% giving it 130bhp, the scorpion exhaust and 57i induction kit should give me an extra 10bhp, I’ve not had that car dyno’d yet the cooper s superchip only gives it an extra 8bhp if you you have no mods but once you change the pulley for a smaller one, put a bigger intercooler on, induction kit and exhaust you can upgrade for free to a stage 2 which I did and it gave me an extra 40bhp, I then changed some components for better quality items and had a new cam fitted only for it to lose 2bhp, Superchips then supplied me with the chip I’m running now which is a ‘stage 2 with cam’ chip which bought it back up to 218bhp as I say I’ve done a bit more since, the pulley is Now a 15% having changed from an 11% and the cheap toyosport budget stainless exhaust has been swapped for a milltek, I resisted doing the manifold too but that’s not a huge task for later in the year, my mechanic has a spare one that needs a new flexi welding on, possibly do that before the major remap and injector swap I’ll hopefully pick it up later today on my way to work and see how it goes with the new bits on compared to before

@russ p might like that

Very nice 37099, only ever managed to drive it once in blue before it was repainted I picked it up a short while later and took to Old Dalby rest track to calibrate the UTU coaches hence the unusual length of the train!