Thinking of moving into super shed territory, budget is a max of £2000. Preferably NA Petrol with room for two bikes inside. Any suggestions?

Alex, if you do end up buying the Berlingo, I have a new Haynes manual you can have for the price of p + p

Yea I linked to the process earlier in the thread. The oil for these is relatively expensive, shame that owners just throw in the cheapest grade between long intervals.Just going to take the hit and get rid of the car.

Heads up, Halfords have some of their tools on sale.

I’ve been using their gearless range of tools for about a year now when they were last reduced and found them really useful due to their low swing arc. Weird to use due to their lack of noise though!

3/8 ratchet: https://www.halfords.com/workshop-tools/tools/spanners-wrenches/halfords-gearless-ratchet-3-8
The head on this ratchet is pretty bulky but has proved useful on a number of occasions.

Spanner set: https://www.halfords.com/workshop-tools/tools/tool-kits/halfords-7-piece-gearless-rachet-spanner-set
Again, pretty bulky heads on these. I also don’t find the open end particularly well fitting but the 10mm has sped up awkward jobs for me considerably.

Not from their advanced range so you don’t benefit from the lifetime guarantee.

Thanks, that makes sense.

Spent the morning pricing up a recon turbo and other bits like oil/filters, feed pipes and oil pick up and it came to £494.10, that is including a decent eurocarparts discount on the oil and filters. That is based on me fitting myself. Still inclined to get shot tbh.

Car is on its second turbo apparently. Berlingo was intermittently losing power all week on my commute. After a bit of reading about the variable intake sticking I filled up with £50 of diesel and stuck in a bottle of Wynne’s turbo cleaner in an attempt to cure the problem, maybe it made it worse, I don’t know.

Can someone explain why a failing/failed turbo can cause the engine to run so much hotter please? Is it to do with the exhaust gases not being cooled by the intercooler?

Berlingo Woe :(

Driving back from town this morning, loss of power, coolant temp rising rapidly and the smell of burning oil. Open the bonnet to find oil leaking from the turbo where it meets the pipe.

Bugger, Haynes manual suggests the turbo oil seals have failed, which means that a new turbo is required. Will probably just get shot of the car to be honest.

An old Jimny would be good. Still a small cheap car with a petrol engine but would keep going where the Berlingo would quit. Plus it would look pretty mean with a roof tent!

Although I love our Jimny dearly, they are not a nice place to be on a long drive, and they are tiny inside! Very very reliable and easy to work on though.

As for the Berlingo, I recently bought the 1.6 version. The engine bay is very accessible and the engine itself mechanically straightforward. The 1.6 is considered an unreliable engine though. After reading the forums I can’t drive mine without a sense of anxiety!

Think you are right about jacking the engine mrmonkfinger, car is on a driveway on a busy road.

How much is it? Long MOT?

Good logic there trail rat. Managed to replace the coolant pipe assembly on the Berlingo. Wasn’t too bad of a job except when undoing hose clips, the tabs always seem to be facing away from you in an awkward position! I am now using the car on my commute so will monitor coolant levels closely.

The great thing about a Berlingo is that the boot doubles as a workshop!

Now to turn my attention to this…

Suspected burnt out valve in the head. To remove the head the engine front cover needs to come off. The trouble is that the cover incorporates one of the engine mounts which requires that the engine be supported with one of these: https://www.sgs-engineering.com/dual-hook-engine-support-500kg?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIzMbp7YSR5AIVWbvVCh0EhQ_hEAQYASABEgLlovD_BwE

My concern is that the top of the crankcase is going to be exposed for at least a week whilst I carry out the work at weekends and that I wont be able to shut the bonnet with the beam in place. I could jack the engine from underneath instead I guess. Also any ideas as to how to protect the open bores/crankcase etc from corrosion? I was thinking of just stuffing with oily rags and smearing everything with oil.

Wow good job spursn17 and JonEdwards! Is this thread going to get busier now that the nights are drawing in I wonder?

I changed the green banded pipe for him which as you say was easy enough, the hardest part was cutting the carpet with a blunt stanley knife. Green pipe turned out to be fine and its actually one of the other ones. For some reason he has also removed the fuel pump from the tank and it now lives in a bucket in his garden?! Not sure what was wrong with it but its certainly no good now. Old people eh?

Nice! Asides from lifting the chassis off, has this rebuild required any specialist tools?

My Father in law has a MK2 Disco that has been sat in a barn for the past two years, only had a split fuel pipe but the silly old bugger has never got round to fixing it. Probably won’t ever drive again which is a shame.

Thanks trail-rat, which engine did you have in yours? Mine is at just over 100k and is on its second turbo. I’ve found this guide: http://www.londonturbos.co.uk/16hdi.html which I’ll be following, I know it doesn’t guarantee against turbo failure and goes against bangernomics but I feel its worth doing.

In other news, the pipe assembly has arrived! Unfortunately the weather is meant to be a bit pants at the weekend when I’m meant to be fitting it.

The new pipe assembly is already on its way. I know its not really doing bangernomics properly by spending out, but to my mind, adding a bit of pipe just creates more places to potentially leak from. But that’s just me.

Engineer friend at work has offered to help put new valves in the head of my Mazda 6 engine if I can bring the head to his workshop…we shall see. Got to fix the Blingo first.

Thanks for the responses by the way, I’ve got turbo anxiety now!

I’ve used one of these Link with good results on some seriously blocked ears. Takes a few goes and is cheap too!

Yea around 200 litres, only £5 each!

Do it and report back Stumpy!

Raft race was last Sunday, came in 3rd place and won a nice little trophy too!

Just realised the pic didn’t post!

Started building the raft today, barrels with ply deck, held together with rope and cable ties, shes a big ‘un!

Well, its getting towards that time of year so I thought I’d resurrect this thread.

Raft race course this year is at slack tide with strong headwinds a possibility, going to spend the next month designing and building a new raft with this in mind.

Any other STW bods done/doing any raft racing this year?

Let the scrounging of materials commence!

Don’t lose heart, you’ve got another to build after!

Nice! Whose kit is that Corsair? Today I managed to snag the Revell 1/72 Corsair from the local stationers for £7. Looks a nice kit.

Any more progress on the Victor?

Thanks guys, hadn’t considered “masking” either side of the panel line to be scribed. Re the snapped off blade, is a square profile better than a bevelled profile for scribing? I suppose you aren’t really cutting the plastic when scribing…

How much better is a dedicated re-scribing tool compared to a scalpel blade? Struggling with some panel lines at the moment with the scalpel blade wandering. Can figure out how a scribing tool would prevent this?

Any update on the Victor? Where are you going to display it once done, its huge!

Wow, seriously good haul!

I got a Revell 1/72 Tornado GR1, not sure when I’ll get time to build it now!

Currently building an Airfix new tool 1/72 Gnat, got it for a fiver from Lidl the other day. Reviews online for the kit are favourable but I’m having a difficult time bashing it together, a lot of filler used on what is a small model. Particularly around the intakes. The two sprues seemed to be two different types of plastic which is odd.

Ive also gone off every humbrol product apart from their liquid poly, their acrylic paints are pants.

Thanks Harry, that’s my evening’s viewing sorted! Re the Revell Lanc, although I don’t have the instructions anymore, I believe that the nacelles are handed whereas I thought they were identical assemblies (obviously could tell the difference between inboard and outboard nacelles). I reckon I put the starboard nacelles on the the port wing and vice versa leading to big gaps :(

Will probably stick to single engine 1/72 models because of space. The last heavy I attempted to build was the Revell Lanc, very poor fit between engine nacelles and wing lead to me relegating it to use as a paint mule.

Nice one, would love to have a crack at a B17. Weather was poor yesterday so I stayed in and made the airfix 1/72 Mustang IV, very nice fit no gaps at all and only £5 to boot!

Thanks sharkbait, those wasp scanners look interesting, does the add on allow you to adjust quantities before making a change to the spreadsheet?

Wow, knew this was the place to ask!

Thanks guys, that’s my evenings reading sorted then.

Had a Perception Triumph 13 sit on top, has a small seat for a child moulded just in front of the main seat, can be picked up relatively cheap second hand now, quite quick for a SOT too.

Are you selling your canoe? Might be interested depending on what it is/where you are.

There’s lots of similar but not quite exact ones about the web,  what about separating the tree from the base and sticking it to the lid of a suitably sized/shaped jar, then fill said jar with glitter and water/glycol mix. You could then upend the jar and then stick it to the musical base?

STW raft race?

Using that blue plastic rope to lash things together? Soak it in a bucket of water overnight – it tends to loosen a bit when it gets wet so best to have that happen *before* you use it

Don’t worry, the raft was well tested beforehand and unsurprisingly the rope did require a lot of re-tensioning after being dunked in the sea.

Fantastic – I like the safety knee pads! Disappointed there were no helmets

The knee pads weren’t for safety, purely for comfort, that ply deck is torture to kneel on for 10+ minutes of paddling.

Thanks Ned, they worked out surprisingly cheap too! You are right, the raft could do with some sort of bow to prevent it digging into the water. Out of the top 5 we were the only raft with 4 paddlers, all the rest had 6 or 8. Would have benefited from the extra horsepower I reckon!