Seems pricey as has been said, I bought an immaculate 70k 03 tdi elegance with fsh and one owner 2 years ago for £3200 (it was up for £3500) from an independant dealer, it is a hatchback but the same dealer had an estate that he’d sold the same day in similar spec and condition that still had the screen sticker on at £4k.

IIRC the clarkes one you are looking at is equivalent to the cheap halfords range, They’re not bad but the runners aren’t great if the drawers are full of heavy tools and theres a fair bit of play so it is possible to jam a drawer if your not careful.

The halfords pro are equivalent to the clarkes HD ones, much better quality runners and generally better all round.

I started out with the older version of the halfords 6 drawer combo chest with drawers and TBH unless you’ve got a garage full of sockets and stuff it’s all you need.

I’ve got halfords ones – the better red ones not the cheap ones – and they are very good, I don’t know what offers are on at the moment but they are often a third off or on a buy a cabinet get a top box free promotion. If you know someone with a trade card they will be cheaper still (or at least they used to be, sometimes the trade discounts change :( )

The clarkes ones in machine mart look about the same quality – but they also do a couple of diffent qualities.

When the halfords ones are on offer there isn’t much in it tbh.

Edit: if you’re near leicester you can borrow my halfords trade card :)

This is the most inspirational matra I could find

Good luck on the walk though :)

Her global consultancy has it’s registered office in a terraced house in Leicester, I won’t need the coach ticket now – it’s only a 10min walk from where I work :)

They’ve got the trunki car seats in sainsbury’s, they look pretty good.

I’d also like a ticket for the lets kill melody coach.

Probably works, not sure what the insurance implications of modifying the abs pump are though.

I’ve just finished a 3x6m deck in the back garden, used 6×2 for the joists at 16″ centers, built as 2 3x3m units then bolted together. It rests on 4×4 posts set on top of concrete pads every 1.5m or so.
I’m 16ish stone and there’s no flex or bounce at all if I jump all over it.
I was unsure about not setting the posts into the ground but a very old tommy walsh groundforce book showed it done that way, even on raised decks a meter or so above ground. i guess it allows for a bit of movement as the timber swells and shrinks during the year.

edit: I fixed the joists together with 150mm timberlok screws, predrilled through the end joist, if your cuts are square they pull the frame in beautifully

These[/url] people do lots of gears, chains, pulleys, bearing blocks etc.

That happened to mine a few weeks ago, taking the damped tensioner with it.

You won’t want to hear but the clutch is a replaceable part, about £50 including the tool to change it from any decent motor factors, it’s rare that the alternator itself would have been damaged.

Although a lot of the tools are designed so you can change the pulley in-situ if you’ve got the STW car of choice, 1.9tdi Octavia, the chassis leg gets in the way and you have to drop the aircon punp and get the alternator out from below. Makes it about a 2 or 3 hour job.

I thought it was Upon my honour, i promise to do my duty to God and to the Queen, to help other people and to keep the Scout Law.

I think my mum has still got my scout uniform in the wardrobe in my old bedroom.
EDIT: I’m 37 so thats been there for 20+ years

Thats a good link, I’ve never used a laccy band but will give it a go next time I have to adjust the commuters brakes.

I do use a laccy band to pull the brakes on while adjusting, much easier to get them square if theres a bit of tension holding them against the rim (and it saves having to have 3 hands)

Make sure the front of the pad hits the rim 1st, new brake blocks normally have a couple of ‘pips’ at the back so you can get the angle right.
BITD a strip of cereal box stuck under the last cm of block then lined up againt the rim worked well.

They must be out in force today, just had a very old man in a bright red cap banging on the front door. Told him I’d posted it a few days ago and he wandered off chuntering.

[Anyone use the special Weber rack things to put the food down in with the coals? I was going to try it but have lost the manual]

Hi yes I use them you put the food in the centre of the normal rack not down with the coals cooks a bit like a normal oven but with the charcoal taste I put an aluminium tray under the food on the coal rack to catch any fat stops flair ups and burnt food.

This.

Best roast chicken ever done like this, load each side with as many brickettes as you can and let the flames go out, tinfoil tray in the middle, chicken on the top, put the lid on and leave for an hour and a half to two hours. Delicious :)

Big leg of lamb rubbed in tandoori powder done the same way is good as well.

Think I’ll dig the weber out of the garage today. nom nom

The other thing the lack of power could be is sticky vanes in the turbo (only if you’ve got a variable vane turbo obviously :) ) my 03 octavia is starting to do it, the vanes are supposed to move to vary the boost at different revs but often get sticky causing overboost as the revs rise,the ecu senses that, opens the wastegate and you effectively have no turbo. Turning the engine off then on again clears the ecu and all is well again for a bit. It normally happens when booting it from fairly low revs in 4th or 5th, it starts to pick up then feels like it’s hit a wall and there is no power.

Fix is either a new turbo or, if you’re fairly handy, stripping the turbo and cleaning all the soot off with solvent and a toothbrush.

Yep, brilliant phone for the money.

Get it unlocked and flash to Android 2.2, there are some good guides on android.modaco.com if you don’t feel up to flashing it (it really is easy though) at least follow one of the debranding guides and get rid of the horrid orange stuff.

Had mine for a couple of months now and it does everything I need, the latest custom roms have gone a long way to resolve the issues with wifi (it drops connection when the screen goes off then doesn’t automatically reconnect) battery life seems to be getting a bit better now it’s had a few charge cycles (but that could just be me playing less on it) camera is pants, no flash and the shutter lag is awful. Takes ok pics of scenery in good light.
Mine has started collecting dust behind the screen in the last week as well.

Thats awful, hope noone was injured.

I’m miles away but I’ll keep an eye on ebay

Hope you get fixed soon, I’ve not ridden for 4 years now :(
Had 2 kids, a knackered knee (operated on and hopefully fixed) and a flare up of ulcerative colitis which lasted 18 months keeping me away.
Hoping to go for my first ride of more than half a mile since 2007 tomorrow or sunday.

+1 for mse, or you could use the free version of AVG

Poor headlights can be caused by cheap or damaged bulbs putting the filament in the wrong place.
Saying that I’ve recently replaced the standard bosch bulbs in my early 80’s campervan with some halfords ultra (I think, they were in gold packets IIRC) bulbs, the difference is astonishing. With good quality standard bulbs there wasn’t enough light to drive at 40mph, the uprated ones are good to 60+on dip. I was going to get the bosch equivalent but the own brands were on BOGOF.
Don’t know how long they’ll last though.

I bought some rebas from the classifieds with an uncut steerer, about 260mm.

Buy a cheap bike to commute on, I picked up a cannondale hybrid off the bay of thieves for £35 when I started commuting by bike (10 miles each way) new tyres and mudguards and it’s perfect.

Unless you can take the bike into a very secure area don’t use a decent bike to commute on, even if it’s not nicked if the ‘care’ shown by other bike users in the bike racks where I work is the norm it’ll be scratched or bent within a week.

Modaco has a good forum for the phone – it’s also known as the ZTE Blade

and orangesanfrancisco[/url] has some good tutorials and walkthroughs

I bought 2 a couple of weeks ago and can’t believe how good they are for the money.

I’m using the FLB-Froyo G2 rom and find it very stable.

Yep they’re planning one in our village as well, currently a massive grass field covered in dog eggs with a run down slide and swings at one end and a fenced off toddler area which is really good and our 2 love but gets used by the teenagers at night so is always getting damaged and covered in broken beer bottles etc.

Plans for a 35x10m skatepark in the middle with a network of paths, play areas and some planted gardens etc. I think the plans look great and can’t wait but some of the locals are really against it.

Had the leaflet telling us about it through the door a few weeks ago, the next night theres some old biddy knocking on the door asking us to sign a petition against it. She didn’t look impressed when I told her I was in favor of it and couldn’t wait to have a go on it myself :)

Nice shed :)

Got any pics of the inside or during construction. I could do with building one about that size at the top of our garden.

What did you do as a base?

Pretty sure the Islamic mortgage loophole was closed a year or so ago, and HMRC are cracking down on the buy as a company, dissolve and transfer house as a distribution in specie one as well.

As said above, if the house is on at £285k then offer £249,999 or save up a bit more ;)

Low flying jets from the nearby airbase? Village looks directly in line with one of the runways from google.

+100

started feeling cak last night, shivers and sweats all night, now can’t swallow. Probably not helped by being on immunosuppressants as well.

Always at the weekend as well :(

Back to bed I go

+1 for the orange san francisco

An hour or so of fiddling and it’s unlocked, debranded and upgraded to 2.2, a few apps installed and I’m very happy with it for the cost.

Only 2 niggles are that the email app keeps downloading old emails not just new ones and wifi often drops when the screen turns off.

Camera is rubbish as well.

What type, T3, T4, panel van/caravelle.

Have you looked on Brickyard, VZI, Club 80-90?

Theres this if you’re after a cheap panel – nowt to do with me and prob needs a bit of work but you would have a couple of grand to sort it.

TBH with the scene tax £3k is probably not enough for a decent van not needing any work, and any at that sort of price will be old, starting to rot and with starship mileages.

I’ve got a T3 caravelle day van but if I was looking now I’d be thinking previa/galaxy etc if carrying passengers or Transits, Traffics (or the Vauxhall equivalent)for a ‘white van’. Brother in law sold his 03 traffic last year, 120k ish LWB, High top only got £3500 for it.

edit: too slow with my typing, it’s all been said up there :)

160mm discs on a DH bike ?

Still see the sunset in the first post and direct link 5 posts up, halfway down the page is a dead link.
Only just looked at the thread so not in my cache, must be slow to purge the actual image from the servers.

+1 for the ear wax addicted cat :) although ours used to try and lick it straight from the source 8O I have to buy cotton buds now she’s dead :lol:

Current no 1 gross out for mrs MikeG is when our nearly 2 year old walks over, lifts my T shirt, sticks her finger in my belly button then sniffs it.

The skies will darken and you will be beset by a plague of locusts……

In reality it will either be fine, but possibly a bit noisy, if the teeth aren’t too worn or the chain will jump under power if they are.
If the teeth aren’t noticeably hooked over the only way to find out is to try.

And the problem with that is?

Cars have different service intervals and filters need to remove paticulates of a certain minimum size from the oil and deal with different flow rates and pressures, to do this there are different grades of filter medium used. Most also have bypass valves inside them which open when the filter medium is clogged. If a manufacturer just adds a listing to it’s catalogue because the filter physically fits there is a danger that the filter will become clogged before the service interval causing the bypass valve to open and the oil not being filtered from that point on (this was a problem when Ford increased the service interval on the 1.3 endura engine when the Ka was released – Mann issued a technical update and new filter almost immediately other well known filter brands took several years) or a new engine operates at higher pressure than others which take the same filter size, in this case the increased pressure could cause the bypass valve to open meaning the oil is never filtered (I remember this was an issue with one of the VAG group engines but I forget which one now.)

Get a different brand?

I’d only use Mann or OE filters (TBH Mann ARE OE for lots of manufacturers), Mann are all built to OE spec for each application, all W712 filters are the same size and thread but each /n variant has different internal specs whereas most of the other brands just list applications by external dimensions and thread size so one filter covers many appications.

Think GSF do them, halfords can get them in, any motor factors in the UK Parts Alliance clicky will stock them, don’t know how many of those will post out though.

Think I might have a couple in the garage, could have a look in the morning if you want.

What does the v5 say? Thats what the dvla will base the duty on, could be worth asking Audi to confirm what it should be. Good luck getting the DVLA to do anything if the v5 is wrong though, tried 3 times to get my old campervan changed from petrol to LPG, each time it came back with a letter thanking me for updating the details but no change was made to the v5.

Depends if there is a charger fitted :) my campervan has a mains hook up but this only runs plug sockets, the 12v and 240v systems are completely seperate. If there is a ZIG board or similar then there’s a good chance there’s a charger.