Kickstart

When I first moved back from NI, with an NI registered bike (WIJ243) I was pulled up one night by an agressive copper who accused me of making up the numberplate All the best Katy

Tayna are good for supplies of batteries, with a good selection of different ones and fast delivery. Gel battery will be fine. Note that as of a few years ago they can't supply the acid to the general public (you need a "licence" to buy it), so batteries are supplied pre filled with acid. This has resulted in sealed and gel type batteries being the default. All the best Katy

In the unlikely event of spare money, lot 749 (YSR80 gag bike), 754 (RG400) and 798 (Ducati 888) for me All the best Katy

UK cars needed cats from 1992 onwards. Fairly sure the FTO would have had a cat as standard (and need one for an MOT) Sometimes.... A lot of modern cars have the easily visible panels well rust protected, but the important structural bits underneath have a lot less rust protection (both subframe and frame rails, etc). The Jaguar X Type we had looked fine generally for rust, but open the front doors and look at the A pillars and you could see rust getting quite nasty. Mercedes around 2000 had major rust issues. All the best Katy

Hiya The FZ750 frame, etc, are away being powder coated. So I switched to fiddling with the CBR250RR over Easter. This is a 250cc 4 cylinder bike, with a 19000rpm red line. The bike is tiny. Brakes stripped and new seals fitted. New brake line fitted. New tyres fitted. Looks like there is a fork seal I need to replace. Carbs are stripped down to clean out and replace the needle valve and seals (the carbs are tiny), plus the intake rubbers (the ones on there are rock had and starting to crack). Getting the carbs off was harder than it should be. Also, removed the immobilizor. Don't trust it and too likely to kill the battery. Hopefully have it back together next weekend. All the best Katy

Hiya i gave an old Humbrol airbrush, probably 1980s but possibly older. It used cans of compressed air. It is going to a friend as a quick first try. However, I am not sure what size paint bottles it should take. The ones I have are all bigger. Anyone know? All the best Katy

Only one I recall ever seeing on the road back then was an unmarked police car in Northern Ireland that I saw regularly. Hardly a good idea to use such an unusual car as an unmarked police car during the troubles! All the best Katy

Seems pretty much the usual failure mode. Although nothing like having the engine make doubly sure that the oil supply is disrupted by having 2 simultanious points of failure! All the best Katy

Want to get a few other things done before I take it to pieces. Won't take long when I get to it All the best Katy

Well, last week I MOTed the Freccia. Minor hassle with the rear brake so a quick retest. Engine seized on the way back. Not sure if the bike is upset at having been off the road for 18 months, or upset at having its rest disturbed. Seems to have used a load of coolant but it wasn't overheating. My guess is it has drawn water in through the head gasket (an O ring on these engines). Probably need to check carefully that the head is flat All the best Katy

Not sure I would touch a Ford with a wet belt engine (and a wet belt would really put me off touching any other car). Our current Focus is a 1.6 (from just before they switched to the Ecoboom engines - we test drove an Ecoboom at the time). It has now done about 160k. If it were an Ecoboom it would probably have required at least 1 engine replacement, and a good chance of 2. As I understand it the latest versions of that engine have moved from a wet timing belt but still use a wet belt to drive the oil pump. All the best Katy

Finding decent fuel hose is hard enough ! I have bought hose that lasted about a week, and even some of the quality hose now can be very thick walled (which us hard to route on some bikes for example) Fuel hose is something that gets to me, as it is something that needs replacing occasionally (especially on bikes where the tank needs to come off far more often, disturbing the connections more often - plus fuel hose hardening with exposure to some fuels is more of a pain when you need to remove it more often). And I am dubious about paying a premium for something that I have no idea whether it is actually better than the stuff that lasts a week All the best Katy

Caliper, disks and pads are service items, and fairly likely to need replacing on any car at some point. If the chassis and sill repairs were done decently then that is the car sorted and lasting a while. And the car would be worth more than the repair costs. Now he has another car as transport, possibly put the MX5 to one side to repair himself as time allows. All the best Katy

Think part of their reputation for being weak is when compared to earlier engines when turbod. The older engines would take a turbo easily with no problems, but the NC engine struggles more when that much extra power is added. In day to day use they do not seem to be unreliable. Rust wise they are not perfect, but they do appear to be massively better than the NB. Most likely corrosion spot is a bolt on brace, that by the time it rusts is unlikely to unbolt! Yes rust does happen, but seems less severe and takes far longer to be terminal than the NB front chassis rails. All the best Katy

The NB is bad for rust. Some of the Yorkshire Car Restorations youtube videos can let you know where they rust. NC is a lot better for rust (although still not perfect - the visible sills are plastic covers to hide things). Value will depend on condition, engine, etc so not sure if £3k is OK. Nice 2L sport for £3k I would grab, leggy 1.8 I wouldn't want. Think the Smart Roadster is auto only. All the best Katy

"Who let the politician press a button?" All the best Katy

Less crew needs less space (stores, bunks, etc) so a smaller ship. Not sure with modern ships and modern weapons that damage control will be that powerful. If the weapon works the ship is probably lost, if it doesn't then most complex work by a couple of people to disarm it. All the best Katy

Hiya I am working on my FZ750 at the moment. One issue with these is the trim around the choke knob and the electric reserve switch which cracks and not very available these days. Also the early model chain sliders are no longer available (and after the first 2 years they changed the rear suspension and the chain slider is different - later ones still available) I had a play with CAD and I have made versions of both. Struggling to print the choke knob trim cleanly (but I have a resin printer on order so that should fix that). Also printed the chain slider, but think I will probably use a print as a master to make a mould, then cast it in polyurethane. I sent the STL files to a guy in NZ (on the basis even once I get around to doing my versions, the cost and time to post to NZ will be slow) and he has printed some versions he will use. Chain slider is in TPU and it will be interesting to see how well it resists wear. All the best Katy

Suspect some of it is down to wanting something with enough ground clearance and suspension travel to make speed bumps less painful All the best Katy

Possibly. Some DSG gearboxes had major issues, but most seem mechanically OK. This was an control unit that went. As to the electric cars being experimental, probably yes to an extent. This car spent about 6 weeks in the dealer when they bricked a control unit, and there were major issues diagnosing it short of the parts cannon (with an expensive and barely available part of a ~1 year old car). All the best Katy

Are the proven reliable products, or are they unreliable but trading on 40 year old reputations? Number of issues people seem to have with VAG group products and the high cost of fixing them seems to suggest that they are not particularly reliable (whether that is the lousy wiring in one neighbours Audi, another neighbours electric VW which hasn't been reliable, or a former colleagues Audi with expensive and seemingly expected DSG issues). An American friend of my father used to buy Golfs as they were nice enough, but also certain to have enough issues to reject under lemon laws and so save money on replacements! All the best Katy

Until the name is tarnished, then the company has lost is most valued asset. Not sure if just me, but the name Bentayga just seems so hideously made up as to be awful All the VAG 4x4s have a strong family resemblence from the side. To the extent that telling a Skoda from an Audi takes looking at the badge, and even the Bentley / Lambourghini badged ones are mostly differentiated by wheel size and paints! Rolls Royce cars in general these days seem to be a caricature of traditional Rolls Royce cars. FAB 1 was far more restrained and tasteful! Overall I suspect that the current uses of badges to sell a product will bite the manufacturers hard at some point. They can only get away with selling an unreliable and expensive to run car as being a reliable premium product based on a reputation earnt 40+ years ago for so long. When that happens it will take them decades (if ever) to recover. All the best Katy

Unfortunately it isn't an option of one or the other, rather a need to be able to counter both. And whichever we don't prepare for is the option an adversary will choose. True. From memory of reports, we no longer even produce the ammunition for the 120mm rifled weapon on the Challenger 2, and think we only have 1 factory producing small arms ammunition for the military All the best Katy

Nato GDP spending target seems a bit strange. The UK is one of the higher, but then the UK also has areas like the Falklands to protect. Germany is pretty much surrounded by NATO countries so spending is purely on NATO defence. The USA has high defence spending by GDP, but half its coastline is not in the NATO area and unlikely to be a target for an aggresor to NATO, plus has forces in Korea and Japan , and various overseas bases. Add in how much went on Iraq and Afghanistan operations, which were well outside the NATO area and limited in the participants. That said, not sure what a better way would be of targeting a level of spending. All the best Katy

Unless we stock up on weapons soon, likely a pitchfork will be the equipment for conscripts. Seems likely we still have 200k SA80s (half of which will be the early non updated version), and sold / scrapped all the SLRs, and doesn't seem we have the manufacturers to build up again in a short timeframe. All the best Katy