ianphampton

When I was at school I used How many of you can remember those - pre-dates even calculators! (For the un-initiated - it's a British Thornton slide rule) and you could use them in exams but you had to say "By Slide Rule" next to your answer as it was only good to about 1 decimal place First calculator I had used reverse polish logic ( 5 then + then 3 then x and it displayed 15) and it cost about £30 back in 1972 or thereabouts - (By the way - I've still got the slide rule, too!)

I received an email today where the Morgan Car Co is auctioning off a load of cherished numbers it had - http://www.dvlaauction.co.uk/index.php/live-auction/72-2/ There looks like there's some real star numbers in here if anyone is interested

SMD - "Plan now is to take the 'plain polished' one back to the plater and Chrome plate that, too - hopefully it'll be done in time to bring it to Wales in May." This isn't a 'for sale' thread as I haven't got a pic of the item to sell - but when I get it back it'll probably be available for about £185 Ooops, sorry about the double post

The inside is plated as well - Chrome doesn't plate on Aluminium very well so he plated it with Nickel first - then the Chrome on top of that The inside is obviously plated but as I hadn't polished it, it's still looks sort of grainy - shiny blue-white / silver but still grainy cool. is there any chance of the chrome flaking/peeling off inside the plenum with the heat? Because of the adhesion problems, he wouldn't give a guarantee, but he thinks it unlikely - especially on the inside as the 'grainy' surface is a good key for the plating - and that's also why he put the Ni on as 'undercoat' before the Cr. The plating is only microns - so very thin - I'll give you a fuller answer in a few months when she's run a few thousand miles with it

SMD - "Plan now is to take the 'plain polished' one back to the plater and Chrome plate that, too - hopefully it'll be done in time to bring it to Wales in May." This isn't a 'for sale' thread as I haven't got a pic of the item to sell - but when I get it back it'll probably be available for about £185

The inside is plated as well - Chrome doesn't plate on Aluminium very well so he plated it with Nickel first - then the Chrome on top of that The inside is obviously plated but as I hadn't polished it, it's still looks sort of grainy - shiny blue-white / silver but still grainy

Finally comlpeted a job after about 3 years - I wanted a polished plenum and as I didn't want to have my girl off the road while I polished the plenum - I bought another one from a breaker, and polished that. It was fitted about 3 years ago. So, then I had my original one spare - and right away I knew I wanted it Chrome plated. The downside was - there was no prressure, no rush, I had a nice polished one fitted in my girl . . . so time passed, and it's taken about 3 years to get it all the way through the various polishing stages. About 10 days ago I took it to the platers, and picked it up on Friday. Fitted it today ! So - here it is - first one is as I collected it Here it is fitted URL=http://s1194.photobucket.com/user/ianphampton/media/2013-04-21ChromedPlenumfitted_zps45f5b92e.jpg.html][/url] Plan now is to take the 'plain polished' one back to the plater and Chrome plate that, too - hopefully it'll be done in time to bring it to Wales in May.

If you want scenic go over from Chapel-en-le-Frith past Mam Tor, then down Winnats pass and along the Hope Valley

Once upon a time, I'd have agreed with this - however, I've had an occasion more recently which has generated a different opinion. My hackles raise particularly over the " . . . done nothing wrong and can prove it . . ." If you've been driving within the speed limit but the policeman says "I had to do 65 to catch up to you in this 40 limit" how do you prove otherwise? I was stopped - but without a video camera running I could NOT PROVE that I was not exceeding the speed limit. I already had 6 points and I watch my speed very carefully, even cross checking it against the Sat Nav to make sure I don't transgress - but the issue is - you can't PROVE it. Once they've stopped you they just will not let you go even though they can't find anything on you. The copper who stopped me did not have any radar or any way of proving excessive speed and I refuted it vigorously. He spent ages going over my car to try and find something (Car in perfect mechanical order - all insured, tax disc on show - so he couldn't) and because his system was running so slowly it took him ages to confirm my insurance - after about 40 minutes he let me go still without proving anything but he did so with SUCH bad grace - he couldn't do me for anything but he gave the impression he was desperate fo fine something - ANYTHING - to do me for. If he'd had the wits to admit he couldn't do me for anything after 10 minutes - if he'd had the grace to admit he was in error - I'd have been OK. The problem now is - I fear (yes, FEAR) that they'll make something up just to justify whay they stopped you, and my trust in the police has dropped dramatically, from generally supportive to anticipating being fitted up for something. Bad policing has a very destructive effect on the attitudes of the public - and that's entirely due to their reluctance to just admit an over zealous stop and to let you get on your way.

I was given a day at Silverstone in an Aston for my birthday a couple of years ago - Just like some of the posts above, the biggest hazard I faced was overtaking the other folks doing 60 mph . . . I enjoyed it but we only got about 3 laps before it was time to come off, and by the time you allow for the drive to Silverstone and the waiting around - you don't actually get long in the car.

Perfectly reasonable for the Scots to have the oil and all the revenues from it . . . . . . . . . . . . . .provided they don't get any other subsidy from England after 2014. You earn it - you spend it however you wish. If you want free prescription, free university education, that's absolutely fine - provided you're earning the revenue to pay for it all. Just don't spend MY tax money in Scotland, if you're an independent country. If you're still part of the UK, then all revenues go into the one exchequer and we all pay our share and it's spent where it's needed - but if you're in your own country, don't freeload on my dime (Waits for ban . . . .also expects to have a . . .'full and frank discussion' in the car park in Wales . . . )

Can I put my name on whatever list you have for attending on the Saturday only? I won't need a hotel room and will just drive over from Manchester for the day - is that OK? Put me down to come on the drive out and the standing around drinking tea and chatting afterwards - I'd love to stay for the evening meal if there's room, and will wend my weary way homeward after that Cheers Ian

I've got a couple of specials if you wanted something a bit different -

Having heard so much about the Toyota GT86 and the Subaru BRZ, I'd been on the Toyota and the Subaru websites - I had an email about a week ago from Subaru saying they now had cars arriving in the UK on a regular basis, and would I like to test drive one? So, I said "Yes" and on Saturday took a BRZ out for a run http://subaru.co.uk/vehicles/brz/se/ Initial reactions on driving it - the engine is willing and pulls well, the noise is reasonably satisfying when you accelerate (but not in the full stainless zorst leage on a 350) and she gets you up to - mildly in excess of the 70 limit - in good order. There's not much rear lumbar thrust, but it's only got 200 horses against our own approaching 300 - but the BRZ weighs only 1.2 tons so it's a bit lighter. I couldn't go wild as it was all done just pulling onto the motorway. Cornering seemed quite nice, went round a couple of roundabouts, at definitely faster than normal sensible driving so 50 plus - and she felt quite nice, pulled well when straightening back up to go back onto the motorway Anyway - driving wise, pretty good Internally - you'd only get in the back seats if you were a double amputee. There's no way this is a 4 seater - at most it's a 2+2 and the kids would need to be small as there's no legroom at all in the back unless you pul the front seats right forward. (Maybe a bit churlish to complain about rear seats as a Zed driver - when we haven't got any at all!) Room in the back is very tight too - I sat in just so see and my head was against the rear window - I'm only 5ft 9" so once again, only suitable for small children Boot was reasonable and the rear seats fold down easily so you have a good area. I only drove the basic model and it didn't have a sat nav - the mileage computer fuctions were very basic and you only get a single CD slot radio - so this was a bit minimalist, I thought. My son also had a drive and said he thought it was a bit 'letterbox' on the vision around - I hadn't noticed a problem but that was his comment Overall - I'm used to the characteristics in a Zed so she's not as quick - but for Mazda MX drivers or something it would be OK, overall feelinig was pretty good and the cabin felt quite nice. Would I buy one - if I was moving up from a smaller car, it would be OK, but compared to the Zed - I don't think so. Maybe they'll bring out an F/I version in a year or two, and that would (perhaps) be a different matter

Wow, this thread changed a bit - I leave the forum alone for a couple of days and suddenly the tone is all about psycopath murderers We plant out a whole selection of vegetables, peas, broad beans, cabbages, carrots, potatoes as well as flowers and grass seed to add in patches in the lawn - and the pigeons and collared doves can have devastating effects. Obviously we use netting over stuff but the area around nmy gf is infested with dozens of the darn things, and you can definitely see the difference in the garden if you cull a few, especially at the critical times. As it happens we also use some sprays and insecticides - the cabbage particularly suffers from caterpillars if we don't, and I know they turn into oh-so-pretty butterflies, but if you dont take some defensive action the caterpillars will eat ALL the cabbage and we end up with nothing. It's not done for fun, it's done for plain old garden husbandry, and I'm afraid - it'll happen this year again, I'm sure, otherwise the garden yield drops dramatically. Oh - and I'm sure you know from this - I'm NOT a vegetarian, and I like my steaks and bacon and eggs - and see nothing wrong in eating horse or kangaroo or whatever, either. And just for the record - if I was stranded in an air crash at the North Pole, and there wasn't anything else . . . . . . who knows.

OK, many Thanks for your comments, I'll just take the rear tyre wear as a Zed consumable item I was lucky enough to find a pair of new rear tyres for her (GSD3 are not being made any more?) so at I don't have to swap all four and will get another couple of years before having to buy all 4 corners again Thanks again

I put my summer tyres back on a week ago - Goodyear Eagle F1 GSD3s. The rears were pretty low - 2.7mm is all they had on them. I bought these new back in May 2011. Since then the car has done 23000 miles - but some of this is on winter tyres, as I swap over about November and swap back around Easter. Now I know i don't drive as much in the winter in the Zed - so, out of the 23k miles, probably 7 - 8k is on the winter tyres - which means the Goodyear Eagles have done about 15k miles. There's a couple of points - May 1st 2012, I did a trackday at Oulton Park, and October last year I did 4 laps at Nurburgring. ( ) Even allowing for this - 15k miles seems pretty short, to me. What do others think? Thanks -

How you can say collared doves are "sweet little birds" is beyond me Aparts from the cr_p, they eat all your fresh seeds - and spring and the planting season is coming so they're likely to get plumper and plumper, and all on your peas and broad beans etc My gf is a keen gardener so I get called in with my BSA Meteor to . . . .attend to the problem I've had this since I was 14 - put a new spring in it a couple of years ago and a new telescopic sight last year . . . . . Good for keeping them away from the car as well as off the garden

Very Nice, I enjoyed those What tyres are you running on?

Found this whilst on the 10pm shift today (Supposed to be working, eh!) Film isn't anything special - I mean, it's OK, but not great - but the soundtrack is worth 5 minutes of anybodies time! :thumbs: (Apologies if its a re-post)

LowePro make all sorts of really well thought out and well made bags / sacks if you wanted something other than a rucksack

I bought 225/45/17 and 235/45/17 for my winter tyres as I couldn't get the 50 profiles in Winter Snow tyres. There are 3 issues 1) the speedo reads wrong by another 5% so it's normally about 8 or 9% out (checking against SatNav) 2) The TCS gets upset if you really give her some beans. It's OK 99% of the time - on winter tyres I wasn't too concerned as I don't drive hard on winter tyres - if you're buying these for summer you may have it crop up a bit more. You can avoid all the TCS issues though - by turning it off. Then it never trips you up 3) As the rolling radius is small (see 1) above) you travel more wheel rotations for any distance so you'll rack up more miles on your odometer. Of course, it's only 5% but - Apart from that - you CAN get away with it. What you MUST NOT do is mix profiles - if they're all 45 then at least the fronts and the rears are in sync. If you put 50 profile on the rear and 45 on the front the TCS will throw a fit. If you put 50 profile on the LHS and 45 profile on the RHS I suggest you apply for sectioning under the mental health act.

This sounds typical. I was not anti police until relatively recently, when a plod pulled me over, but I denied vigorously exceeding the speed limit and quoted the speeds I knew I had been doing so he knew I was not BU_LSHI_TING and I knew exactly what I'd been doing and where. He then spent 40 minutes checking the car over, checking DVLA and not finding anything I really don't understand why they can't say "Sorry for the misunderstanding, Sir, havea good journey" and letting you go. I can only put it down to their naturally miserable nature - goodness knows mixing with some of the Friday Night SC_M around my location would definitely put you off any regard for the citizenry - so they mix with some unpleasant elements, but why they can't admit their mistake (at one time they were human, not so sure any more though) and let you go without the embittered "I'll find something to screw this guy on, somehow" they seem to follow these days Rant over, sorry

I think you ought to insist all sub-tuners offer marmite on toast - that should be part of their training

The way so many morons drive in the UK - I think there should be another test you can take, say, 3 years after your first test. If you pass, you're given a pump action shotgun, and a licence to remove idiots off the road. So - you get out the truck, put the civic driver in the body bag and toss him over the barrier, and then carry on with your journey.