alastairq

With the Dancover garage, it is simply that...a drive-in-drive-out shelter....I can even work on the car inside it..[i have some lights strung up]....I am surprised how resilient it has proved in foul weather. During the cold spells....surprisingly the interior warmed quite rapidly once the sun came out...... During strong winds, the ends are secured with elasticated bits....somewhat like bungee straps....indeed, I have used a bungee or two to replace lost bits... The outcome of this is a flexible end which can bell out, or in, according to wind direction & strength.....thus allowing the air to pass through unhindered....the steel tube frame is anchored at at least 4 points, by long ground anchors....and although there is some movement, it never shifts position. Sometimes, condensation can form on the inside of the cover in cold weather, but this soon dissipates.... a simple cover over the car suffices.....[keeps the seat dry, if nothing else].... Starting the engine, which needs full choke, doesn't result in a coughing fit on my part.....unlike when I had a real garage for it.....

One of the above does the same job.....around £300 or so, Dancover, from Denmark...excellent service & backup....survived an awful lot of gales too....allows a throughput of air, yet surprisingly, keeps stuff dry....only advise using the heaviest PVC cover they offer, however. The one above is 6 metres long, too big for the car inside, so houses things like lawnmowers, logs, bits & bobs, etc...accessible from both ends, and wide & high enough to drive a Daihatsu Fourtrak through, from one end to the other...[just].... After much mulling, decided it was the best option for me...since the ground it is on [well hardcored and gravelled] is sloping....so any sort of rigid, fixed shelter would have levelling issues...the Dancover does not!

Worryingly, the Russian navy had Lada [class] submarines..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lada-class_submarine

The FIAT 124 was actually quite a different beastie to the Russian [Lada] version..or indeed, the SEAT version, or the various others [including KIA?].. For example, it had disc brakes all round.....and shook the European car world with a 1200cc engined, family saloon capable of over 90 mph! The Russian variant had several hundred differences over the Italian product....[including the engine...which, although I think it was FIAT designed,FIAT never used it themselves?] The point being, when it was introduced [in around 1966, I think?]...what else could be had on the family car market? Nissan [Datsun] and Toyota were still yet to arrive in the UK.....VW still clung on to the aircooled beetle.....Renault were still rear engined, I think....[although the R4 came out earlier..but, hey ho, who in the UK wanted to have one of them seen on their driveway? [yes, automotively-speaking, we were a pretentious lot back then too....although not as bad as we are today?]].......so we were left with Ford Anglias, the first Cortina's [Escorts didn't arrive until '68...I once owned an F-plate 1300GT!]....BMC 1100 &1300, Viva from Vauxhall...the Opel Kadette..... Then FIAT announced the 124! In my view, the very first family car with what are now seen as modern ideas about performance! Heck, they sold a 4 door saloon that would blow off an MGB, ffs! Really, the 124 & it's FIAT derivatives announced the beginning.....and the end.....of an automotive era. [the end of the traditional sports car?] ''Things will never be the same again?''

FIAT 124 was a revelation when it came out...in the 1960's...

Morning all.....dull, wet, windy here.....having problems with handbrakes.....they seem to be snapping left, right & centre on me. Oh, well, I guess it's back to good ol' blocks of wood again?

Yesterday, after work, discovered the pond is full of frogs. Quite a racket they make, too. Also found the Ex busy taking photographs!

If an old but cheap sports car is one's barra.....then one cannot beat one of the 'specials' that were produced throughout the 1950's. Find one with 'sidevalve' Ford running gear, and you'd have a sprightly motor, with all the driving characteristics of a pre-WW2 car. It would have a chassis..probably the Ford item....and all the necessaries, parts, bits 'n bobs, and stuff generally needed to replace stuff, or keep it running, are available freely via the Ford Sidevalve owners club, or specialists like SmallFordSpares.[without whom, I, for one, could not have done without over these past 2.5 decades!!]. Whilst sidevalve Ford engines are no longer cheap as chips in every scrap yard..[they compare with buying a new engine these days]...they are reliable. The FSOC has a specials section...well worth joining if sidevalving appeals.... Rusty floors could be ignored, too.........

DAimler Dart/SP250 indeed it is! They used Triumph running gear [from the TR range]...and the truly excellent Daimler 2 1/2 litre V8 [Turner-designed] engine. Whilst the shape is an acquired taste,there can be no denying the excellent performance on the road. I recall the 'family' GP driving one when I lived in Sutton Coldfield, back in the early 1960's. This wasn't the first of Daimler's sporty cars.....[Conquest Century Roadster springs to mind too].....so they didn't just produce limo's or buses! And if one thinks its shape isweird, note the styling queuues are still seen in todays cars.....just check out the fronts, for example, on every Fordhyundaikiadaciarenaultfiatvwskodaseatchryslerandsoonandsoon tha one comes across in every traffic jam one sits in [sorry, cannot equate todays transportation to actual 'driving'...more like, get on the conveyeor, get off the conveyor?].....and like Pete above, I sadly cannot tell the difference between any of today.s new offerings.....they all look alike, and since the demise of the tax disc, I can no longer accurately identify the maker anymore......! Plus, i suspect, very few of today's modern 'drivers' actually have any idea of what it is they are driving! [it's a 'car'..that's all we need to know!]

Sorry this is a bit late in responding..only found it by accident! The 'top speed' for the RT was around 40-45 mph. About on a par with the nasty plastic Routemaster! [Which replaced it] I was trained by London Transport [the real London Transport, not today's ethereal apology]....back in 1972 [as soon as I was old enough, pretty much]....and drove the RT in anger for two years. I worked from New Cross depot, on the No. 1 route, secondary base being Waterloo bus stand ... Marvellous employer....looked after the coal-face workers. The RT did not have the benefit of power steering.....so the pre-selector gearbox was a boon when 'ear'oling around the Elephant 'n Castle roundabout. In those days, Surrey Docks was....Surrey Docks! Nothing better woke one up than a cold winter's morning, finding out too late the entire top deck was full of 19 stone dockers! The angle of lean round bends was dramatic and worrying..... IN the summer, down Oxford Street, we weren't supposed to have the windscreen open.....but with that tumping AEC motor plodding away next to one's left leg...plus the huge [external] radiator...with its even huger rubber filler cap....any sort of breeze was welcome. Yes, the RT was perceived as 'slow'.....acceleration hadn't been invented when they were built.........but you'd be driving damned slow if you had to turn the steering wheel, with 60 or 70 folk behind you on board. The Routemaster, on the other hand, had an Automatic transmission, [in top gear position only, ] with manual control available available for the lower gears....they didn't have a proper front axle [more like a giant Vauxhall Viva, really]...and they had power steering......which made a world of difference to the driving environment. They almost 'floated' over bumps and stuff......and were nowhere near as physical to drive as the RT. They got up to speed more quickly, too. But, on the No.1 route, the only place one could get legally above 30mph was when one's turn took one south towards Bromley. Horses for courses, buses were geared to perform well within the speed limit prevailing. But, as a whole, the RT was the 'nicer' bus to drive......but, if one didn't watch where the gear selector ended up.....one could put one's conductor hard up against the front , upstairs....when you found you'd selected 2nd gear, instead of the expected 4th! Believe me, you got what you wanted! Today's buses are pansies by comparison!

I am no Jagwar expert....and to be fair, the Jagwar I saw at Soton was only identifiable as an XK, FHC, and my poor memory as to what said buffers told me. It had no wheels, not a lot from circa 2 foot downwards, no glass....being just the remains of a shell...with that all-important chassis plate! In other words, if displayed on this forum, it would have drawn huge praise for the rust and corrosion modelled!

Now..I wonder whether the XK140 was the same wreck of a shell with chassis plate I witnessed two old buffers getting forklifted onto their trailer at Southampton docks, when I went to fetch my Dellow a year last November....from a similar container? The shipping agents' compound is a joy to behold when it comes to container opening time!! So many Ferraris , SS100's, bikes & Bentleys.....too many to shake a stick at!!

The above from the website..try the email address?

Brilliant, Mike....I don't care whether it's to 'scale' or not...[if I did, I'd scratchbuild one]....in fact, I wouldn't know if it was to scale, or not. What I do know is, having seen photos [and the real thing in the flesh], your emily looks like a Stirling single...and that is what is important, as far as I'm concerned. Thank you for putting in all the time & effort, all the trial & error....in order that we can go out and do the conversion, right first time!

Bet it goes better than an R4?

But it's got a bigger engine? And wider wheels [or even, wheels?] ANd looks more stylish, less functionality? Plus...somebody is bound to notice if it got dented? Style-wise, the R4 {IMHO] was a real case of 'form-follows-function?' The Matiz is a small hatchback.....rather than a utilitarian vehicle [which was the R4's appeal to me]....and I bet, driven properly, the Matiz can be made to perform well.....even the Perodua Nippa[er?] could be turned into a latter day Mini Cooper.... With the R4, one could quickly remove all the seats.....

For sure, the R4s rusted.....so did just about everything on wheels from that era, aside from Reliants. I owned a R4 once...the 850cc version. It was a sound, dependable workhorse, capable of going pretty much anywhere I needed to go. It was comfortable [in a sort-of, French farmhouse kitchen way?]....it was nippy enough...in those days, one learnt to how to make decent progress with the small amounts of power available...today's drivers know nothing of such skills! It would carry just about anything I needed to carry....and it was quite frugal with the petrol, too. It did, however, require new rear shockers every year!! If it couldn't climb a hill forwards, it darned well managed it in reverse! I loved it...for its simplicity. The gear change [once used to it] was a sheer marvel to use. The engine was impossible to break....it 'handled' very well indeed...if driven with a modicum of thought.....[and .....lack of fear]....and it could be driven cheekily without fear of breaking things. It is such a pity there is nothing around these days with the attributes of an R4.....

Metalcote ?

Up here,it's a 'what's that?' response.

Hi...I'm enjoying this too....re-the slide bars? Are the bars on Emily simply too close together? Would changing the shape of the crosshead improve the illusion? [maybe using something from a scrap pile?] [is that a 'step' I see superglued to the prototype's cylinder top?]

Hi...would the 'real thing' have been really smooth?

Or, on some wagons, insert a razor saw blade? There is usually some free play in the pivot. Save the two rivet halve, and when it comes time to re-attach the bogie, use the two rivet halves, and find a piece of plastic sprue that is a nice tight fit inside the rivet....squeeze together to get required ride height.

The Piko shunter you link to is one of these below http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_%C4%8Cesk%C3%A9_dr%C3%A1hy_locomotive_classes I have one too.... http://ngrm-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/10778-what-do-i-have-here-then/?hl=piko&do=findComment&comment=203113 A link to a thread I started elsewhere some time ago, with some useful info? I note ,my motor is differnt to yours? Has your Piko chassis been modified in this respect?

For that, it would have to be a 404....

http://reseau3gg.centerblog.net/rub-voir-les-embranchements-particuliers--2.html Will that help?