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Topics - Doctor Gollum

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General Car Chat / Cylinder Head Question.

« on: 22 April 2025, 10:57:52 »

Is 0.013mm a reasonable amount of distortion?

So, head is off the Nissan and whilst the block surface is true, the head is not. Basically it has this amount of distortion evenly in the centre of the head...

If you draw an oval around the middle two combustion chambers, the centre of the oval is dished into the head by this amount.

It is central both side to side and end to end.

The technical information states the following:

"Do not rework cylinder head (3) and crankcase (surface grinding).

The permissible production tolerances will otherwise be exceeded.

i Tightening the cylinder head bolts (4) compensates for a slight distortion of the cylinder head (3) in the longitudinal or transverse direction.

If cracks or unevenness are present,

↓

replace cylinder head (3) and crankcase.

Engine 282 in model 177 with transmission 700.42

AR27.10-P-0005MFD"

There are no obvious cracks and I take "unevenness" to mean rippling or twisting.

General Car Chat / Mercedes S500 Ongoing "Project Upgrade"

« on: 13 April 2025, 08:15:55 »

I acquired The Proper Car, a SWB W221 S500 back in July 2006 and bought it based on condition and mileage for the price rather than spec. Although I did get lucky with the colour... Flint Grey metallic with a grey over black interior... anything that might get grubby is black and helps break up what would otherwise be a sea of grey.

On the subject of spec, the car is reasonably well optioned from new:
Cornering Bi xenon's.
Upgraded leather.
Heated/ventilated Dynamic front seats.
Harmon Kardon sound system.
Telephone/Bluetooth installation.
Black headliner/A/B/C pillars.

All in all a very nice place to be but missing a few options I would have liked to have... We'll come back to that...

Some background:

I don't think I have owned a single car that I haven't done something to, generally sticking to factory (ish) upgrades, whether it's adding a Ghia X interior to my first car, a 1985 2.3 Granada LX, or replacing the plod interior on my '54 plate Omega estate for a full Elite interior with customised door cards and Irmscher kit/wheels and then subsequently reverting it back to full police spec, lights and siren included

The key to a successful upgrade project is the availability of information, parts and wiring. Nowadays, information is reasonably freely available. For parts and wiring there's a sweet spot of availability around 10-20 years old, (depending on the car), where there are enough around for a choice of used parts and availability of anything else from the manufacturer. So the Granadas were an easy car to work with in the late 90s, and likewise the Omegas until about 5 years ago with a decent inventory of cars being scrapped and dedicated breakers.

My first S Class, aka The Barge, (a '99 W220 S280) whilst not my first Mercedes, was a forced introduction to Canbus systems and fixing some previous bodgery opened up some creative retrofit possibilities. The ABS didn't work because the car thought it had Distronic, (Radar Cruise) fitted... it didn't, and this had to be programmed out of the car. If something can be programmed out, then why can't it be programmed in? That base S280 ended up with cornering Bi xenons, parking sensors front and rear, a different steering wheel and W221 wheels, but the bodywork left alot to be desired so there wasn't much point taking it further.

It's replacement, a '10 R350L, aka The Alabama Mumsybus, didn't escape the upgrade itch. It left the factory with prewiring for rear entertainment. It left me with rear entertainment fitted along with some US only rear stowage bits.

Mercedes retrofits are well documented in their maintenance system WIS, and with a bit of time and effort trawling through the EPC it's pretty straightforward identifying all the parts required for any given retrofit, even if it's not actually an official retrofit item. It doesn't hurt that they have pretty decent long term parts support so getting anything from a nut to a wiring harness for a near 20 year old car is still feasible, and their service item availablity is excellent.

General Discussion Area / Oh my days...

« on: 25 March 2025, 05:49:57 »

Sitting in the lounge at Gatwick, and the lady behind the bar is chatting to a chap with Down syndrome. He's quite chatty and when she asked if he played any sports, he replied that he's quite partial to a round of golf...

Her next question, without so much as a pause, "What's your handicap?"

Priceless

General Discussion Area / One of those weeks...

« on: 21 March 2025, 06:08:09 »

Get to work on Tuesday, park on the roof of the multi story staff car park.

Just start boarding passenger and get an email saying that said car park is close for emergency repairs.

Get to Seattle to another email saying that no cars have been damaged and that the car park is still closed but we'll be able to collect our cars without issue.

Just boarded to come home when a passenger announced that Heathrow is closed until midnight because of a fire in Hayes.

Get back to the hotel 5 hours later.

General Discussion Area / Licence renewal...

« on: 01 March 2025, 04:33:36 »

My photocard expires at the end of the month so have had to have a medical as it's the first one after 45...

Apparently because I was drinking 3-5 pints once or twice a week whilst away, that's considered binge drinking even though I have probably had 10 drinks since the beginning of January.

Some prodding and poking following TCV in October has so far discovered pre diabetes, a fatty liver, slightly elevated cholesterol. A recent ECG was fine but with a heart scan scheduled for a couple of weeks time that was noted on the form along with the drinking even though I am taking no medication for any of it.

Basically none of the above has been considered significant enough for anything other than monitoring, and apparently my blood pressure is high, even though it was exactly the same as the average from last week and in line with a previous set from November, aka normal for me, and certainly nowhere near the levels set by DVLA for the HGV medical.

Licence sent in for renewal, but I have absolutely no idea if it will come back with C1, C1E, C, CE, D1, D1E.and provisional D/DE on it or not.

Apparently, in order to retain the pre '97 entitlements ie C1/C1E you're required to have a medical as anything between 3.5 and 7.5t is considered to be Large Goods Vehicle and is treated as such and choosing to not renew my C/CE could potentially wipe out my C1/C1E/D1/D1E

If this is the case, then there is also a question as to whether I might need to take a test to tow over 400kg with the car as well.

And to top it off, the cheeky sod who did my eye test suggested I need varifocals inspite of being told about two smudges on the screen I was supposed to be reading from.

On a positive note, if you ignore the £150 for the medical, the renewal is free.

General Car Chat / Nissan Cumquot

« on: 27 February 2025, 16:18:01 »

Petrol, possibly '68.

Poor cold starting followed by stalling upto temperature.

Full Nissan history from new.

Recently been in to investigate and found that the thermostat casing had split. Fixed and highlighted a misfire. All plugs found to be heavily fouled and replaced and car returned only to suffer poor starting again.

I suspect that the thermostat housing contains a coolant temp sensor and as the coolant dropped it misonformed the ECU causing it to over or under fuel. Resulting in the non starting and misfiring.

Is the above a reasonable diagnosis?

Three weeks later and the thermostat housing has failed again.

General Discussion Area / They don't like it up 'em...

« on: 11 February 2025, 20:48:43 »

https://youtu.be/64E9O1Gv99o?si=WTT29uRAwvOqzfs_

General Car Chat / Car Tax Scaremongering

« on: 17 January 2025, 08:04:58 »

Noticed in my web new feed there's an everywhere increasing amount of clickbaity headlines about 'tenfold' cat tax increases for drivers of petrol and diesel cars...

The reality?

If you drive a car over 76g/km and are currently paying £10 A YEAR, there's a good chance it will rise to £110.

Sure, in percentage terms that's a hefty increase, but the reality is that it's the price of two coffees a month. If you can't afford two coffees a month, the reality is that you already don't own a car.

The other increase is for more expensive EVs so I really wouldn't worry too much about it.

General Discussion Area / LA Fires

« on: 12 January 2025, 10:01:18 »

Been sidetracked in Phoenix the last few days and got home to see the news.

Have been fortunate to spend a fair amount of time in LA last year, over a month in total, and usually have an explore around, including a few drives up and around the Pacific Palisades area... Last time in November was a particularly special day, and we drove from Beverley Hills along Sunset Boulevard down to the coast, literally chasing sunset.

Saw a news crew doing the same drive through Pacific Palisades immediately after the fire went through and I have no words

Apparently the local reservoir had been drained for maintenance but the water company hadn't bothered telling anyone.

General Discussion Area / Jeju crash.

« on: 30 December 2024, 17:01:11 »

Before it suffered the bird strike, the flaps were deployed and it was on a stable final approach and the only thing left to do was drop the gear and land.

After the bird strike, the only extra thing was to possibly pull the fire handle for that engine and shut the fuel off.

They'd have landed relatively normally into the wind had full wheel braking available along with the wing spoilers and everyone would have gotten off non the wiser.

Instead, they fly for another five minutes, raised the flaps and kept the gear up before attempting a belly landing with a tail wind and two people barely survived.

Either significant pilot error or murder/suicide.

And before anyone says anything about the mechanical condition of the aircraft, they had enough control to raise the flaps, fly past the airport, perform a 180° turn and crash along the runway.

The concrete reinforced berm across the runway might have been the final hole in the cheese*, but there were plenty of opportunities to not end up there.

*Reasons Swiss Cheese model. Also, without the berm, I suspect that every one would probably have survived except possibly the flight crew.

General Discussion Area / Biden.

« on: 02 December 2024, 16:33:15 »

The spiteful coot has out done himself.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2024/12/02/joe-biden-pardons-son-hunter/

I dread to think what else he's going to screw up in the next five weeks.

General Car Chat / A positive Jag review... Sort of.

« on: 24 November 2024, 18:17:10 »

https://youtu.be/bVN-eWbaSTg?si=WKbQMilxwH6Ssjc0

Only problem is that it's a five year old car and they've simply not moved forwards.

General Discussion Area / Good ol' Joe

« on: 20 November 2024, 12:41:28 »

Not content with being the worst President in history,

Allowing Zolensky to fire US missiles into Russia just to be spiteful makes the whole January 6th bo lax look like a tea party.

That stupid coot might just get everyone killed

General Discussion Area / Democracy at work.

« on: 06 November 2024, 07:51:41 »

Congratulations to the United States on the democratic election of the 47th President...

Donald J Trump.

General Discussion Area / Fag packet maths...

« on: 30 October 2024, 15:40:47 »

Er, I mean, budget...

Almost halving the threshold for Employers NI is a pretty effective way to totally opps over business growth. Which in turn will mean fewer people employed and will cost the State more in welfare whilst also reducing overall productivity and in turn revenue, not only for those businesses, but also the State by way of reduce tax income.

Cue a very slow, sarcastic hand clap.