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PollyMobiles Rebuild

It will be interesting to hear your review of the band saw after you have lived with a bit longer.
I've been eyeing up them (and similar) for a while but have yet to pull the trigger on buying one.
 
If you do a fair bit of fabrication such as exhaust or frame work, I'd highly recommend this bandsaw as a starters.
It's really affordable, and once carefully configured it makes life soo much easier. 14tpi blade hasn't dulled yet and cuts steel tubes very quickly.
In my tiny workshop it's abit bulky heavy and the cheap stand is meh but I'll be fabricating a better stronger frame on castor wheels anyway.
 
from the recent classic car meet I met Gee who needed help with welding a rust hole on his mini. initially thinking it was a small hole to patch up and quoted £40 but as usual this turns into a bigger job :rolleyes:

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at first it looks abit meh with the rust spreading to the lower sill

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but some prodding and wirebrush reveals a horror of rotten sills and mass of bodyfiller ?

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christ! the insides are just rust and dodgy filler, plus it's been fitted with 'over-sills' which don't feature the original drain ports and simpy traps more water & rust ?

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chopped the pourous rusty parts out and vacuumed all the debris

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this tigersealed gaping hole might be where water could be leaking in

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grinded the old spot welded strip out

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this cheap copy pattern sill wasn't a precise good fit. I trimmed the front part to match

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but just look at this mess
it doesn't match the door line curve, different spacing and doesn't reach the end far enough

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so I had to split it into sections to line it up and then fill in the gaps

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drilling the plug weld holes is a chore
tack welded in place

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with the wind picking up, welding it outside with an inconsistant unpredictable welder is frustrating ?

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grinded the welds flat

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that was definately a pain to do and worth more than £40 work. I've yet to do the lower sills too which seems more difficult
 
I've yet to do the lower sills too which seems more difficult
Good work so far, oversills are a much maligned repair amongst mini enthusiasts, done when minis were worth nothing to get them through MOT. The outer sills should be spot welded on the floor panel and on the outer seam, the ends were the hard bit to get out cleanly on my mini as they were bronzed in.
 
from the recent classic car meet I met Gee who needed help with welding a rust hole on his mini. initially thinking it was a small hole to patch up and quoted £40 but as usual this turns into a bigger job :rolleyes:

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at first it looks abit meh with the rust spreading to the lower sill

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but some prodding and wirebrush reveals a horror of rotten sills and mass of bodyfiller ?

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christ! the insides are just rust and dodgy filler, plus it's been fitted with 'over-sills' which don't feature the original drain ports and simpy traps more water & rust ?

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chopped the pourous rusty parts out and vacuumed all the debris

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this tigersealed gaping hole might be where water could be leaking in

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grinded the old spot welded strip out

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this cheap copy pattern sill wasn't a precise good fit. I trimmed the front part to match

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but just look at this mess
it doesn't match the door line curve, different spacing and doesn't reach the end far enough

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so I had to split it into sections to line it up and then fill in the gaps

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drilling the plug weld holes is a chore
tack welded in place

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with the wind picking up, welding it outside with an inconsistant unpredictable welder is frustrating ?

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grinded the welds flat

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that was definately a pain to do and worth more than £40 work. I've yet to do the lower sills too which seems more difficult

That’s the O/S sill, plus inner sill & then the N/S yet to start on @ £40 cheap as chips by a factor of ten?

You could be my jobbing welder anytime! :)
 
I think you should be charging £40 per hour not job! Many years ago the MOT station I use where charging £10 per inch of weld and apparently that was cheap ?. Luckily I've always done my own repair/ restoration


I've lost count of how many mini door step and sill jobs I've done now and these days I don't bother repairing, I just buy a complete inner and outer sill repair panel that's already spotted together and Replace the lot in one go.

What welder are you using for it to be inconsistent?
 
I think you should be charging £40 per hour not job! Many years ago the MOT station I use where charging £10 per inch of weld and apparently that was cheap ?. Luckily I've always done my own repair/ restoration


I've lost count of how many mini door step and sill jobs I've done now and these days I don't bother repairing, I just buy a complete inner and outer sill repair panel that's already spotted together and Replace the lot in one go.

What welder are you using for it to be inconsistent?

That’s the sills sorted, what about the front & back sub-frame mountings & trumpets inner wings? :eek:
 
Minis are always full of little rusty surprises lol simple 1 patch repairs often turn into a full strip down and rebuild

Sent from my EML-L29 using Tapatalk
 
cheers guys, I had a chat with the guy about the extra work I did to it and ended up paying me £65 for it. he wants me to simply patch up the exposed lower sill hole just enough to pass the MOT and sell it onwards, so I quoted £60 to add the panel and tigerseal that gap in the wheel arch.

£40 per hour? eek I myself would just feel guilty charging that much for a small size job but took soo long due to bad conditions and correcting the fitment.
I'm using a clarke 135TE but I think the occasional poor welding was due to the wind, bad ground from being painted with weld primer and a worn loose MIG contact tip (didn't bring any spares)

I was only asked to fix the rusty sill, I dare not venture into the rest of the car and find more work to do lol
 
interesting to find that the old preface seat belt buckle is shorter than the newer facelift seat belts that Jack gave me

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my m8 Simon has been having trouble with his R33 Skyline misfiring and running poorly rich after discovering his engine loom near the bulkhead had shorted out and caused a few issues and losing his patience.
I popped round to help test & diagnose it and found some bent coil-pack connector pins, few vacuum leaks, too much throttle cable tension and IGN dizzy needed aligning.

after fixing all that, it ran much smoother now but there's still a random slight misfire only when it's above 37c, which is very similar to when I used to have dirty fuel injectors, so I suggested he should try swap to a spare fuel rail and also see if unplugging the temperature sensor to force it into rich-mode stops it from misfiring when warmed up (to check if it's a mapping or physical issue)

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was recently given a nice free sticker from the Nissan Ultimate Show Group for regularly posting my update contents on there ?
I thoughtfully placed it to cover the ugly blanked key hole and to balance out all the other graphics on the boot, looking shweet :cool:

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found another annoying rattle in the back was this loosely clipped plastic reflector in the brake light

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wedging some rubber pieces fixed that ?

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visiting Jess's place after a car meet to help with some simple engine work

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Callum wanted me to print some black 9.3mm HT lead holders for his micra

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cos my printer bed is no longer heated, I can only print lower temp PLA whereas my HT holders were made of high temp ABS.
concerned it they'll melt, I removed my old HT holders

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fitted the new PLA holders and went for a test drive and they didn't melt, they were actually quite insulating & cool to touch

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Mohammad who owns a cool NSX just brought some new coilovers and needed my help to fit em

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the old Zeal coilovers were very crusty and the alloy components very oxidised ?

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he brought these lovely Yellow Speed Racing fully threaded coilovers for £800, similar price to mine

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comparing old & new

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1st thing to do is remove the springs and set the bump stop

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jack the wheel up and set the lower ring till the tyre just misses the arch

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then set the spring ride height till the arch gap was all equal & concentric

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even though all the wheels sat concentric in the wheel arch, the chassis was pointing down and the front splitter was actually painfully scraping the floor just coming off the ramp ?? the driveway leading to the cambered street road will be even worse so tomorrow we'll need to raise the front up 15-20mm to make it practical.
 
swapped over to my spare BBS wheels, sprayed black, so that I can spend the next few days slowly cleaning & ceramic coating my white alloys ready for the NE Autoshow on sunday

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these BMW BBS has abit too much offset tbh so there's a rude amount of poke with the dark wheels ??

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finally added some mini pringles back to my intake pipe that's been missing for quite awhile ?

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spending the last 4 days cleaning the white wheels ready for sundays NEAS show, I first wirebrush all the rust & excess paint off the wheels hub-face so it'll sit flat.
Then I rediously wash, degrease, polish, degrease & ceramic coat every contour of each wheel ??
It took at least 2-3hrs each so after an exhausting day at work, I could only do 1 wheel per day ?

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the irratic rain was annoying but I managed to fit the clean wheels and washed the rest of the car

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cleaning up the bay and catchcan, which caught 330ml after 1600m

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reprinted the catchcan label

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all ready for tomorrow
 
2020-08-23 North East Auto Show

8am gathered with the CCS car group at the A66 BP garage (where I was finally able to buy the red salted mini Pringles can to complete my intake pipe ?) before we all head towards the show together.

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the entry sequence was a bit chaos, our group was scattered all over the place but eventually ignored the marshals and just all drove round to park together into our group but spaced apart.

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ceramic coating works a treat. after driving through heavy rain the dirt normally bonds hard onto the rims but now I can easily wipe it off with my finger ?

spotted azzam and his 1JZ RX7 parked nearby

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spotting a carburettor & EFI minis & sierras at the show

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plus Craigs 'SuperCoop' mint Skyline

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it was a good turnout being the only big car show of the year, I didn't take many pics walking around, the heavy rain came prematurely after lunch and afternoon which ruined it and had everyone leaving early ??‍♂️ meh was nice to see lots of familiar ppl
 
2020-08-29 Great North Air Ambulance Classic Car Show day 1

Arrived with Jess at the Dormans club on a windy saturday, so just a few dozen cars turned up

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2020-08-30 Great North Air Ambulance Classic Car Show day 2

It was a much better sunny calm day 2 and so the field was jam packed :cool:

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later that afternoon my m8 Jess met her idol Russ Swift, a famous stunt driver, and really chuffed to bits that he signed her austin mini bonnet ?
that'll raise the bonnets value and she's gonna laquer & frame it at home, gonna replace with a carbon bonnet ?

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spotted another m8 Ian and his dragster

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lovely esprit S1

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some gorgeous corvettes

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visiting a m8 Craig and Annabel who's really local to me with an R33 skyline and Mitsubishi GTO and runs the Kuruma UK club and his youtube channel SuperCoop

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her GTO was having trouble cranking recently so thought I'd lend a hand fixing it.
I dismantled and cleaned the gunk off the starter solenoid which was sticking, plus the solenoid wire was very dodgy crimped which didn't help. we also spotted and immediately fixed a driveshaft support bracket which had rattle off the block and hanging, making a knocking noise ?
after a long night fixing all that, it starts strongly 1st time ?

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went to finish off welding the lower sill of Gee's austin mini. enough to hopefully get it past MOT to sell onwards

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a nearby m8 Ben sold me a spare rear bumper plus these wind deflectors that just slots in.
tried em out and wow what a difference it makes.
previously just cracking a window open sends a blast across my face but with deflectors, it neatly sucks the hot air out and keeps rain out too ?

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time to replace the poor flimsy legs on the bandsaw with a rigid frame on castors.
used my crane to lift/support the heavy unit while I fabricate the frame underneath

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designing the frame to support the front heavy saw

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carefully organising the cuts within the 6x 1metre bars

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welded the top & bottom loops

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and joined the uprights

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adding castor wheels

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now I can move it around the small workshop

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Jess needed a precise 50 x 25 x 6.5mm penny washer to help install the austin mini's tapered wheel bearings.

chopped a section of 50mm steel rod on the bandsaw, does a very very nice job cutting a flat square even face ready for the lathe :cool:

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machined the 25mm hole and 6.5mm thickness

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the tyre valves on both left wheels have been leaking again :unsure::rolleyes:

so Jess who works at Ford Jennings offered to fix the valves and finally align the yellow tyre dots to the valves too ? so I swapped over to my track wheels while I dropped the white wheels off

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collecting em after work, the valves were fixed and tyre dots aligned but there were black scuff marks on the spokes of both rear wheels, it took a fair bit of buffing out but actually left a dent in the paint. another major dent was on the front wheel lip where the jaws of the tyre fitting machine must've caught when she flipped the wheel over ?:cry:

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she was sorry and offered to pay me 25% towards the re-powder coating that I was eventually gonna give em anyway, which helps :)

I'm thinking since both the rear white wheels have this odd off-center bolt hole issue (where the center hole and rim wobbles up/down, even though it was perfectly balanced on the machine via the center-hole)
I'll have the black trackday wheels powdercoated white instead cos they're perfectly straight.

tonights task is to remove this steering column plastic cover (removing it from the tight engine bay would be a PITA) so I can unbolt the UJ and remove the steering rack to fix a squeaking sloppy rubber rack mount.

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3D print solid steering rack bushings

The steering rack has been squeaking a lot and felt slightly sluggish.

This was partially caused by cutting the 'square' half of the rubber bush so that I could fit a machined half-circle bushing as an early attempt to reduce play. but what it actually did was allow the mounting bracket to pivot from the front side and the very loose fitting rubber mount at the back allowed the bracket & rack to 'swing' sideways resulting in sloppy response.

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to unbolt the rack, first I had to detach the steering column UJ off the rack. decided to unbolt it from within the footwell which was slightly easier than trying to remove the cover from the tight engine bay

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so here's the sloppy rubber rack mount, notice the huge gap between the rubber sides and the mounting bracket

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modelled a tighter fitting new bush

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3D printed over 6hrs

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Snug install

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went for a test drive and ooh the steering finally feels very sharp & responsive :cool: ?
 
3D print solid steering rack bushings

The steering rack has been squeaking a lot and felt slightly sluggish.

This was partially caused by cutting the 'square' half of the rubber bush so that I could fit a machined half-circle bushing as an early attempt to reduce play. but what it actually did was allow the mounting bracket to pivot from the front side and the very loose fitting rubber mount at the back allowed the bracket & rack to 'swing' sideways resulting in sloppy response.

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to unbolt the rack, first I had to detach the steering column UJ off the rack. decided to unbolt it from within the footwell which was slightly easier than trying to remove the cover from the tight engine bay

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so here's the sloppy rubber rack mount, notice the huge gap between the rubber sides and the mounting bracket

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modelled a tighter fitting new bush

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3D printed over 6hrs

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Snug install

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went for a test drive and ooh the steering finally feels very sharp & responsive :cool: ?
Looks good and fits well Paul. My only thought is how resilient is the material and will it keep it's shape for any length of time? I have made firmer bushes for suspension joints for my MG Midget in the past to replace moulded hard rubber ones but I machined them from black Nylatron which I know has very good wear properties and has a high resistance to impact and oil contamination..............
 
if I ever see a row of those at a car show, they'll literally be like peas in a pod :ROFLMAO:

I don’t understand the attraction of the early Mk1 Mini, a now 60 year old design that is not safe or suitable as a daily runabout in congested modern traffic levels? :rolleyes:
 
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I don’t understand the attraction of the early Mk1 Mini, a now 60 year old design that is not safe or suitable as a daily runabout in congested modern traffic levels? :rolleyes:
Have you driven an early one? My first car was a 1960 Mini van, (some 53 years ago :eek: ) suitably tuned they are really fun to drive. I see not real problems in the suitability of still having one on the road. As for the safety issue, in the day, a friend managed to run a Radford De Ville Cooper S square into an unlit kerb in a motorway services carpark . The front sub frame did manage to push the floor up somewhat but he wasn't injured. I also managed to have a frontal crash in mine which necessitated replacement of all of the front panels with the worlds first road going fibre glass front, bought from the racing car show in I think 1968 from the then only supplier who had only previously supplied for use on track cars. Mind you I would not like to see a modern crash test on a Mk1 Mini, though one with a solid rust free shell (new replacement Heritage shells have been available for many years now), would probably fare much better than the average 20+ year old Micra K11 with a rust riddled shell......K12 's do seem to stand up very well , which is more than be said for a K11 when new, which is only slightly better than the Classic Mini......
 
Looks good and fits well Paul. My only thought is how resilient is the material and will it keep it's shape for any length of time? I have made firmer bushes for suspension joints for my MG Midget in the past to replace moulded hard rubber ones but I machined them from black Nylatron which I know has very good wear properties and has a high resistance to impact and oil contamination..............

yeah, I've always felt my PAS had this floppy dead-center feeling for years and yet driving other micras felt sharper...turned out to be this floppy old bushing all along. the new printed bush fits really snug and wow the steering feels responsive & chunky.

once I've fixed my printers heated bed I'll print it again in ABS. if the plastic degrades, it's really easy to just print another.
 
2020-09-12 Yakushi Car Show

Before the covid restrictions hit again, the Yakushi show down Silverstone will probably be the last major car show of the year.
Since I was told about it last minute and all hotels were fully booked, it would be a very early 4am saturday trip to arrive there by 8:30 to meet with a few friends

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it was a pleasant day for it. the field looked familiar and remembered this is often where ppl camped for the Japfest silverstone show.
we were expecting a grand huge flat field like in JAE but tbh it felt more like a small classic car show

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the long convey drive back home following craig & annabels group in their R33 skyline, GTO, 350Z, S2000 in the sunset was amazing :cool:
 
And this trip was really sensible in the middle of a pandemic, that is just starting to spike in the UK again? :rolleyes:
 
I've finally decided to get myself a GoPro Hero 3+ black edition for £60 on ebay to replace the old cockpit camera.
can film 1080p super-wide @50fps or upto 4k @12fps and has wifi.

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drilled some holes in the enclosure right over the mic to help record better sound

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tested a few settings, the superwide 1080 seems too fisheyed, normal 1080p seems the best balance of sharp detail/contrast/file size but the onboard audio is very poorly muffled. I'm gonna try plug the lav-mic to it with a usb adapter.

 
visiting Mohammad to replace the snapped front springs on his BMW 520d

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near-side had a snapped coil.
being a simple wishbone, I just had to undo the bottom bolt/drop-link/top mount.
most fasteners loosened fine and access was good. hardest bit was pushing the suspension down while trying to squeeze the strut assembly past the arms and then using the dreaded spring compressors ?

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new pair of springs fitted

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for afew nights I've been trying to 3d print a new support enclosure for the GoPro with limited success cos large parts tend to warp during long prints. it was taking too long, being too bulky, flimsy, complicated until I had to tell myself
Keep It Simple Stupid!

in the end I simply attached the camera to an L-bar with double-sided tape and cellotape and locked to the beam with a jubilee ?
it's now solidly secure with unobstructed lens and microphones

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brought this miniUSB-mic adapter thinking they were all the same :unsure:

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only to discover they're NOT the same and the external mic didn't work :rolleyes:
cos I actually brought an adapter for the old Motorolla handset which only uses the lower 5 usb pins for audio,
whereas cameras like GoPro uses the upper pins of the full 10pin miniUSB standard for audio

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so I ended up buying yet another mic adapter meant for GoPro, and this time it's the full 10pin connector and the external mic finally works on the camera :)

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taped the stereo Sony mic to the roof while the other mic recorded the exhaust.
video & sound is soo much better now and although the sony mic still captures some GSM interference coming from the GPS it's much less than before.

 
the old peugeot 307 exhaust has fallen off so it's time to replace it all.
got a cheapo silencer off ebay and just look at this shoddy hanger welded onto a bracket and barely bolted on :unsure:
just baffles me why they did that when the other hanger was welded on like normal?

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I welded the hanger directly onto the steel casing like normal :rolleyes:

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the 17yr old silencer was rotten inside

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mid pipe & silencer fitted and it quiet now :cool:

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2020-09-25 New TIG Welder

I've been wanting to invest in a TIG welder to improve my welding and bring new capabilities.
For a few months I've been interested in the R-Tech TIG170ext and TIG161 cos they can run on normal 13a plugs, weld alloy, have excellent 3yr warranty & customer support.

Since they offer 0% finance to spread the cost out to just £90/mth I may as well get the best one possible before we all go into a 2nd covid lockdown.

So I applied for finance on the TIG170ext (it has a digital programmable interface, various advanced features & handles 170a).
unfortunately after submitting various detailed questions, I was denied finance even though I always paid bills on time, never in debt or borrow money ?
that's kinda disappointing I didn't get to spread the cost and I ain't prepared to pay the full £1.7k up front ?

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So the other option is the TIG161, which technically does the same overall thing except it's analog and much cheaper ?
It doesn't have the convenient pre-set digital dash to save time or exotic features but that really doesn't matter to me tbh.

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I nervously had to bite the bullet and purchased the most expensive tool ever and the next day I was sooooo excited to see this huge prezzy to myself ??

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so here's the shiny new TIG machine ?

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was curious to see what's inside it so I carefully removed the casing, it's built like an old desktop PC case lol

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tons of electronics crammed inside it

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4x 80mm 24v fans constantly running full speed in the back

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box of extra accessories including remote pedal, gas regulator, the standard huge WP26 torch, new thinner gloves and TIG finger

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added the optional smaller low-amp WP9 torch to my order cos I'm mainly welding thin stuff

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I'm glad I brought the WP9 cos the WP26 is soo big, bulky & heavy ?

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free remote pedal

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new helmet

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nicely painted pearlescent too

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these TIG gloves are soo thin & dextorous compared to chunky MIG gloves

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since renting argon from BOC or SGS or Hobbyweld was soooooo £££, I was gonna travel down to Andy in hull to collect a 20L bottle of argon for £25 plus £5 rent and help with a project of his which may lead to a potential job, but then the north east was given local covid restrictions which ruins that plan :rolleyes:

decided to grab a 10L rent-free bottle of argon from hobbyweld for £130 (£60 returnable deposit) and collect the 20L bottle from andy in the future

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comes with 160bars of gas

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compared to the compact MIG, there's a lot more clutter to handle including the pedal wire and gas hose & fillers

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1st practices at TIG:

the gas lens that Andy gave me wasn't giving any gas flow

the remote pedal was very tricky to manage intially considering I'm also trying to simultaneously control the awquid chunky torch position, feeding the wire and looking for the puddle o_O

found the torch switch made things abit easier to handle so I can concentrate on just the puddle and feeding wire.
got a lot to learn, but thankfully Rtech offered 4hr free TIG welding courses when buying the machine, which I can book in billingham once these covid rules are relaxed :)

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I wasn't happy with the chunky, bulky, heavy, rigid feel of the R-Tech torches, just couldn't get comfortable with it.
opened it up to look inside and reveal a simple thin hose & switch

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heads are screwed onto the flexi hose

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both plastic handles are the same, too bulky imho

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got rid of the rubber & leather outer sheath

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looked around the house to find the correct size plastic/rubber tubes to slip onto & insulate the torches.
it's looking similar to the slimmer CK tig torches now.

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suspending the hose from above relieves a lot of the weight off the torch so it's easier to hold & maneuvoure around

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taped the switch back onto the thinner handle. ooh this is now soo much better to feel and hold

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getting comfortable is soo important, I can now use the switch to pulse weld along a thin edge too :)

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Very good choice.
I have the same machine & helmet. You will probably use that whole bottle just practicing and trust me it's all practice practice practice when it comes to learning TIG the 4hrs training is a nice option.
Personally I don't have an issue with the larger 26 torch but everything is personal choice and comfort is probably one of the most important things
I'm a bit odd and find aluminium easier than steel when it comes to tig.

Good luck and keep practicing ?
 
Very good choice.
I have the same machine & helmet. You will probably use that whole bottle just practicing and trust me it's all practice practice practice when it comes to learning TIG the 4hrs training is a nice option.
Personally I don't have an issue with the larger 26 torch but everything is personal choice and comfort is probably one of the most important things
I'm a bit odd and find aluminium easier than steel when it comes to tig.

Good luck and keep practicing ?

indeed I've been using it few hours per night for past few days, finding it hard to feed smoothly, lots to learn, and bottle is almost down to 1/2
hopefully collect a 20L this weekend from Andy.
I'll book the training course once I feel I progressed along the most I can and need extra help.

just brought some Alu rods to practice with

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New Foamex door panels

The original fabric/card door cards are getting old, filthy, leaking sound and dated so I brought these 5mm sheets of PVC foamex (often used for signs) to make some new panels

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I'll be screwing the new panel directly onto the door frame for a good solid seal so I brought few packs of M6 rivet nuts plus a dedicated riv nut tool, which makes installation sooo much easier/faster, and riveted the existing holes

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using some clear adhesive sheet over the door as a template to mark out all the holes to be drilled in the foamex

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drilled & dremelled the holes

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a few holes needed adjusting :rolleyes:

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peeled off the purple cover

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fitted the handle. looks much sharper ?
cos it's bolted tightly to the door, the front speaker also has slightly better bass too. the rear speaker bass in comparison is soo weak now.

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A few things no forgot to say...

Its worth checking out welding tips and tricks on YouTube. His videos are a great learning aid.

Clean your metal and when you think it's clean, clean it some more. ( Including the earth point)

Get a dedicated machine/wheel for grinding tungsten. Trust me you will be dipping your tip more than a jiggalo. As soon as you contaminate the tungsten clean it, dont carry on trying to lay a bead.
I found a "mini" bench grinder in Aldi (£20-ish) which is used solely for tungsten.

Tungsten choice can make a difference. I only use 2% lathinated now as it does everything well and I don't have to worry about changing it.
 
A few things no forgot to say...

Its worth checking out welding tips and tricks on YouTube. His videos are a great learning aid.

Clean your metal and when you think it's clean, clean it some more. ( Including the earth point)

Get a dedicated machine/wheel for grinding tungsten. Trust me you will be dipping your tip more than a jiggalo. As soon as you contaminate the tungsten clean it, dont carry on trying to lay a bead.
I found a "mini" bench grinder in Aldi (£20-ish) which is used solely for tungsten.

Tungsten choice can make a difference. I only use 2% lathinated now as it does everything well and I don't have to worry about changing it.

oh yes I've subscribed to Jodie for few years, lots of gr8 tips and examples.
also watch Weld.com too

yup I often get the tip way too close and foul it. and spend another few minutes snapping the end off and regrinding it :rolleyes:
brought a pack of 2% thorated 1.6mm red tips since I'll go through a few :p

good idea getting a seperate grinder, although my workshop is now absolutely crammed full.

I found that the 0.5s pre-flow just ain't long enough cos the initial arc would always start off very violent/unstable and then stablises after 2s.

Instead if I tap the trigger or pedal first with the tip pointing away so that the argon fills the area for least 1s and then I get into position & begin welding, it starts soo much smoother & quieter.
 
to improve the rear speaker bass, I measured and designed this simple parcel shelf enclosure

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marked out the pieces on this free sheet of old 15mm wardrobe panel found in the house ?

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carefully cut and marked all the holes to predrill

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held the pieces together into place with tape whilst I drill into the ends of each panel

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lots of screws holding it together

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took lots of hours and effort to make it but it's sooo satisfying when all the pieces are accurate/straight/square and assembles with no gaps ?

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packed it with old pillows, added the speakers & wiring and screwed it solid onto the car

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so I went for a drive and although the enclosure has 'slightly' improved the rear speaker bass to match the front bass, overall it's still seriously overpowered by the boomy loud exhaust & road noise making it sound relatively flat.

when I apply a 'low-pass' filter to the rear speakers making it act like a subwoofer it normally sounds ok at idle/low speed but once again whenever I drive at speed, the exhaust totally drowns out the rear speakers as though only the flat front speakers are working.

so I guess I'll need a powered subwoofer ?
 
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