alastairq

I guess there are still some proper ''sailors'' in the Navy? [In my day the height of modern technology on the bridge [my usual workplace at sea]...was a Decca Navigator...which couldn't be relied upon entirely. LORAN wasn't available as the ships I sailed in were British ships, and we didn't entirely trust the yanks...} Bridge control of the injins????? A telegraph, a rev counter, and for emergencies, a telephone to 'down below'.....[Three rings of the telegraph meant ''effin' full astern!!''] Suez was shut the entire time I was ''at sea''.... A six month 'trip' meant three round trips, UK-Gulf.....Kharg Island at one end, Isle o Grain at the other...24 hours alongside at both ends..great!!! [I think not]....Luckily for me I spent more time in the Med, than going round the Cape....Syria /Lebanon one end, a few days later, Italy! A lot more than 24 hours in port as well....That's if a certain somebody didn't blow up one of the pipelines? Which happened on more than one occasion, if my old journals are anything to go by? Anyway, I take it, if there was a ''proper'' sailor on that bridge, they were taken ''all aback?'' [Flat aback?]

The smaller ship jumped into the way...

Re-the collision...I know little of modern ships' mechanical problems [having been a Navigation Cadet all very much in the era of the sextant]...but I do wonder, watching the video, whether there had been an issue with the control of the engines...and in which direction they went? Others who are professionally involved may know different, but I recall certain makes of ships main diesel engines actually having a trait of folk not being certain which way they'd turn [for sure?] when re-stating from 'engine stop?' The name 'Doxford' somehow springs to mind? My experience was solely with shtim and Burmeister & Wain...But I do recall having had the hammering home of '''when ringing down for full astern, confirm [make damned sure] the rev counter started swinging in the desired direction....'' Obviously those older folk on the bridge had suffered harrowing experiences in this direction?

Whilst on the subject......

Not suggesting there's always something fishy about caledonian politics, are you? :)

I thought at first sight, it was a modification of one of those Austin pedal cars... :)

Sadly no such option round these parts! Also, the fish one would get could only be rock salmon! [They call it hake round these parts.......bloody foul stuff!!]

.....and the rest? Plus, it aint a 'supper' in my view.....Not without mushy peas and maybe a cuppa? Much can be saved by not ordering one's fish n chips in a box, too.....However, i do note that if wrapped in clean whitish paper, how well the chips and batter sticks to the paper? IIRC, more so than when wrapped in the Guardian? My nearest [rural] chippy is part of the Deep Blue chain....but at least everything is cooked fresh on receipt of the order...nothing left hanging around in the hot boxes...

I acquired [devious means...] a 1303 beetle many years ago [curved screen, maccy struts]...It was a LHD, sold , I discovered, as a 'base' model, with 1200cc engine.... a German market version only, I believe? My item had been originally purchased, used, in Germany by a member of the UK armed forces....and had been 'tarted' up with a lurid green paint job. Subsequently brought to the UK, still on UK armed forces German plates.....and abandoned on a military establishment. [Borden?] Acquired by not very official means when the order to remove' was given, and a scrappy contracted to do the deed, by a 'senior' military personage, and subsequently passed onto me[for free].....with the potential to adapt for trialling [UK sport, based upon daftness of competitor]... It was incredibly rusty underneath the glossy paint job, and I struggled to do anything with it...[torsion bar suspension being much stronger for off road usage]..So I trailered it down to an acquaintance who specialized in VW preparation for trials.....who might have been able to use the pre-1972 chassis number.....

I would too, having 'worked' with them on & off for 20 years...But , sadly, I can't 'fit' behind the steering wheel of any of the series types.....and struggle to ge t behind the wheel of any of the Deaf-ender types...aside from the military versions, which have most of the interior trim absent, enabling my legs and elbows to find room to stow themselves...! :(

Dropping an exhaust valve was the usual trick with air cooled VWs....mostly no.3 [front left, looking from the back]. Often at around 38000 miles. Sage advice of the time was to pull the left head and measure the valve length. I didn't. Hence, a type 3 fastback [1600 'flat' engine]...dropped its valve at 70 mph on the M62.. Type 2 bay window van [1600 upright] dropped its valve whilst idling on the driveway. The advantage of the VW aircooled, and the 'following' it had, enthusiast-wise, was the ease with which a replacement engine [or, half engine] would arrive on one's doorstep on a pallet. Swapping over essentials wasn't a major job, and fitting it involved nothing more complex than a trolleyjack.

I have owned one or two proper automatics [old school, both 3 speed, epicyclic, with torque converters. I have spent my entire working [driving and 'teaching' ] life using autos, semi autos, pre-selectors, autoMATED , a various manuals, ranging from 2 speeds, 3 speeds, up to, many speeds......[more than one can shake a stick at]. Not forgetting gear levers with gates, without gates, bias or no bias...to the left of my legs, to the right of my legs, left and right on the steering column, left or right of the dashboard, you name it. Levers, switches, cheap push buttons, even reading-my-mind! {ESP?] Electric change, air operated change, mechanical change, wishful thinking gear change.... Not also forgetting the switches, or types of 'range change'... I haven't ever found any gearbox type that I couldn't actually assert some form of 'manual override'....IE control manually should I have wished. The manual ''override'' [Or getting a more appropriate gear in my own personal view?]...did indeed vary in its technique....many times over.The worst of the autos for exerting my own influence over, was to be found in certain [but not all by any means] Leyland Olympian double deck buses...where the 'control' lever had but three positions....auto, neutral, and hold. The ''hold'' position held the gear it happened to be in at that moment. Which gear it happened to be in at that moment was entirely potluck [Pot luck being, whatever the gearbox happened to have decided at that moment]... The only way to encourage [or not] a gear change was to flick the damned lever out of 'auto,' into 'hold,' then back immediately into 'auto....' [Edit...the other way around actually] All that with the right hand, of course... The big advantage of the [proper] automatic box was that it wouldn't let the driver make either one of the two main mistakes drivers make, when trying to control the gearbox manually [any gearbox, manually, really]! IE, to low a gear at too high a road speed...and too high a gear at too low a road speed. If I had fewer gears to play with, then something like, contemplating an overtake, for example, would take on a whole new aspect to how one drove. Do I change down to the 'middle ' gear of a 3 speed box, and risk running out of the torque curve as the revs rose higher? Or do I pick my moment more carefully, and stick with top gear, and rely on the build-up of torque, in order to increase my speed? I did find there really was little difference in the time it took to increase speed with a 3 speed box, if staying in top gear, or downshifting to 2nd, then changing up to top once the engine was shattering my eardrums... Regardless of whether the engine was a 3.3 litre 6 cylinder, or a 1172cc sidevalver.... {Or a SAAB 2 litre OHC!] Of course, with overtaking, nothing concentrated the mind, and powers of observation, more than overtaking traffic at speed, with an 850cc Renault 4. Perfectly possible, perfectly viable, not for the faint hearted, however. Incidentally, that Renault 4 had the nicest manual gearchange I have ever come across, for ease of handling and acquiring gears....[Yup, umbrella stick stuck out of the middle of the dash board.]

I merely reiterated an argument proposed by a government minister on the topic, recently, in this regard.

I don't think it's the students who are being 'counted', but their close & distant relatives that they bring over with them [or after their arrival?]...wives and families, and extended families, etc etc?

I've managed around 125 miles in top gear in my Dellow....on a [camping] trip with some motorcycling chums from work.....{I had no motorcycle, the Dellow being the nearest thing I could muster...no roof,twitchy handling, but could out corner any of their big motorcycles on very tight, twisty, across-the-moors lanes.... It only has 3 gears, mind......and the driving position is so cramped that actually, wilfully, changing gear has to be planned down to the last detail...so the gears are best left alone when on a long run...It'll pull top gear from walking pace.... I once knew an old Harley owner [old Harley, but he'll be old by now as well]....with a sidevalve Vee twin engine, and advance/retard lever on the handle bars....He would leave it in top gear in town, merely using the clutch, and playing with the A/R lever when pulling away from traffic lights, etc ...Phunk phunk phunk, sounded a bit like a Field Marshall....

Enlighten me please, O! Owners of motorcars made this century....what is a DSG gearbox? To be more precise, is the DSG an epicyclic gearbox? Does it have a torque converter? [Or a fluid-driven flywheel?] Or is it internally more like a manual gearbox in gear layout? Does it have a clutch[es] between it and the engine? [Both of which are controlled by ECUs, rather than by a hoomin?} Is it chain driven? [Like Frazer-Nash?} Would I like it?

Would that be the {C4} 3 speed auto, but also a 4 speed auto? That was what they sued in the States.

Autos in this country once had a 'bad' name, when compared to their reputation in the likes of the USA or Australia.. I think this was down to the fact that, in the US, autos were the default fitment, with manuals being an optional extra for most run of the mill autos, before the turn of the century? Here in the Uk, the opposite was the case. Pre 2K, I noticed that cars with auto boxes [proper autos, IE epicyclic gearboxes, torque converters, etc]...had gearing modifications which meant their [relatively small, compared to USA] engines revved higher at a given speed, and suffered poorer economy as a result, simply to restore some semblance of similar road performance with the manual versions. Simply because the proprietary auto boxes had fewer gears, and the engines weren't 'tuned' to suit. {My experience with SAAB 900s, in particular, found this.] Also I have noted that, especially with ''basic'' USA cars, [Pre 2K] manual versions suffered from very heavy clutch actions. More to do with the cobbled-up clutch linkages than anything else, methinks? A point I have noticed regarding driver skills.....is that I have seen far too many drivers not actually controlling the gear lever properly during the act of changing gear. Many drivers I have observed, criticise a manual gear change on a particular vehicle as being 'rubbish', etc.....When in actual fact, it is their lack of understanding of, and the proper handling of the gear lever which is at fault, not the vehicle! Since finishing with the work thing [''retiring'' is inappropriate these days]...I don't even bother trying to help people get it right any more..... But the problem was brought home to me recently when my last Ex-wife was required to drive my 21 YO Suzuki Grand Vitara, with its [chunky?] gearbox. Crash, bang, grind, wrong gear, it won't go in, it won't come out, I hate this......All because she insisted on operating the gear lever without thought as to what is actually happening, and how to handle a 'proper' gear lever [rather than a Ford hatchback gear ever, etc]... I left her to it.. My son, a regular passenger, noticed how lightly and deftly I controlled the gear lever in comparison...making the whole gear changing process seem so light and easy. Which , given what I did for a living, one should rightly expect from me... One thing age, and several marriages has taught me, is , when to hold my tongue!!

Monthly cost of VED also has an impact. Especially for cars of around the 20 YO mark? I noticed the cut-off date for low VED [2017] where VED changed, to make quite a difference to the monthly VED payment....[IE, costs more per month/year]

I admit to spending more time than I have , watching and learning from his political philosophy videos. Certainly I am less of a reactionary than I once was. I believe Labour desperately want to shed their past.... As if their past is some kind of embarrassment to them?

Perhaps going some way to explain what has happened?

Indeed. But the customer is always 'right'....and as drivers of cars we generally tend to be in lurve with huge numbers of gears, clutches, horrible gearsticks, and all the associated driver errors and wear [as a result] that go with such testosterone-fuelled lifestyles. Ford [amongst others] had it right first time round [with gearboxes] by fitting an immensely reliable 3 speed auto box [the C4]...as a basic standard. The 200 Cu In 6 engine with a C4 is a pure delight to drive [especially for someone who has spent a lifetime matching revs, double de-clutching, grinding gears [once in a while...it is permitted, you know..to grind maybe a dozen gears out of 5 000 -odd gearchanges , often more in a week sometimes].. In all honesty I cannot for the life of me understand the passion for 6 or 22 speed gearboxes.....It's as if drivers [buyers?} think they are still actually , in control of things? My late lamented 200-6 in a '67 Mustang was a delight to drive....At roundabouts all I had to do was simply accelerate....No messing about with clutches finding the biting point without stalling the engine, or messing about changing gear via a neutral position which meant the engine wasn't actually doing anything for performance whilst the driver fumbled around with the gear lever, then found the clutch biting point, yet again....Oh dear, such a waste of time and effort. The 6 pot, with 3 speed C4 auto box [no neutrals between gears, notice?} in a relatively lightweight car meant it was 'gone'..... No revving needed, just using the low down grunt of the engine...such a lovely lazy way of getting about... The lighter weight of the 6 when compared to any of the V8s used, meant for a nicer balance of the car when cornering [or, going round bends?] Now I am left with the Dellow, which has 3 gears, not including reverse. I generally only use 2 of them..the whole car weighs less than 400 kilos anyway, so under 50 bhp is perfectly adequate. I am beginning to think that bhp and 'speed' capabilities are a waste of time in this day & age, on our public roads. Neither can be fully used, without being inconsiderate of others.

On the one hand, there is ''integrity''....& on the other hand there is''seeing what we can get away with''..

The US Ford inline sixes had the inlet manifold and cylinder head cast together.. [the ''Logs'' as they were known]... The big problem being, a tuner couldn't guarantee the smoothness of the runners going to the end cylinders, since the manifold could not be removed. Some went to the extreme of cutting the whole inlet log off the cylinder head..but that meant a lot of machining needed to be done to make & fit a new inlet manifold design. Offenhauser produced a piggyback manifold [plus a triple carb set up]..which meant, two large holes cut into the top of the manifold at each end. The Offy piggyback manifold would then be clamped on top...with gaskets, of course. Very impressive looking....if not the ultimate in bolt on power tuning... The Offy setup had a progressive linkage too...On gentle throttle openings, only the centre [the original] carb would be in use. Once the throttle was opened wider, so the two end carbs came into play. I suspect a decent two barrel carb [or twin choke, such as a Weber]...on an opened-out original head/manifold produced enough power... Getting hold of an Aussie inline six Ford head is today rather in the realm of hen's teeth...with costs to match.