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Oct 22, 2012 14:10:11 GMT
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What about outbord boat engines? Are the usually water-cooled or air cooled? There seems to be a lot of them available on ebay. My experience is limited to knowing someone who wanted to use one for a little go-cart and it was underpowered. I think the smaller, cheaper, air-cooled ones will be underpowered.
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Oct 22, 2012 13:30:59 GMT
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Will it be running at constant RPM?
A single cylinder bike engine would be very compact but the requirement for water cooling might limit your selection.
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Oct 22, 2012 13:20:03 GMT
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Is there any value in looking for an unpopular (thus cheaper) commercial donor vehicle? While auto would be uncommon in older commercials, it would be a complete drivetrain so there would be no pick'n'mixing with engines and gearboxes.
What about a Taxi? Both models seem to have auto options.
What's it going in? If it's a Caterham clone kit car then my somewhat agricultural suggestions will start to seem silly...
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Oct 22, 2012 10:21:15 GMT
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Best way to aproach this would be to find a short lenth of tube that fits snug over the stub then find a drill bit that fits down the tube nice and tight ,this will give you a good counter sink to start drilling straight at the centre of bolt don`t rush slower the better ,take it steady and work up sizes till just under size That's a great bit of advice, I've never heard of that before. It would've saved me loads of time doing the drilling but, more importantly, I probably wouldn't have put it off for so long if I'd heard of that. I had 4-5mm protruding and sheared it off with an extractor thing because I'd never welded before and was too scared to try. I taped everything up with that silver tape they use on hostages so that no little bits of metal would get in anywhere.
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Oct 19, 2012 10:21:12 GMT
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Sell it to a scrappy and let it be his problem to get it away?? Beat me to it! This might be worth more as a complete tank than as a pile of cut up scrap to be weighed in. Apologies if that's already been ruled out for some reason but my father in law's business is scrap metal and he often has to tell people that they've spent days cutting stuff up that was worth much more while complete.
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Oct 19, 2012 10:14:38 GMT
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I'd prefere a complete & GOOD interior over perfect bodywork! As even very expensive cars may require major rust repairs. Rust is usually hidden very well. Be on the look out for bad repairs - many of the diesel-estates served as working horses... This was my experience while I was looking for a W123 estate. I saw a few rolling restoration projects with mismatched interiors because of the dificulties of getting them. You say you want a 300TD, were they available in RHD W123s in the UK?
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Oct 16, 2012 14:57:59 GMT
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Spotted on Jalopnik today: Quite retro to begin with, being an '88 S10, some of the body parts are from a '48 Dodge pickup. Full piece, which was part of their "Nice Price or Crack Pipe" series: jalopnik.com/5951939/for-1850-you-dirty-ratNot sure how practical this would be to do in the UK, knowing nothing about BIVA except that it causes big fights on here, but I like it a lot.
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Oct 16, 2012 10:56:12 GMT
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A pal of my Dad's had one in, probably in the 70s, that he only used for going to the football. He drove his normal car, not even an auto, to his Father's house and took the Invacar out of the shed it lived in. I've always assumed he could get into the football for free as well as getting a pitchside seat, is that right?
A boy I know in the scrap metal trade remembers lots of them turning up at his yards within a few months of each other and the people being disappointed to hear there wasn't much metal in them. They were all runners and he reckons the engines were the same as some generators used by the railway engineering guys for welding plants.
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Oct 13, 2012 19:39:46 GMT
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Loving the Bentley S2 in the background...
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Oct 13, 2012 19:05:55 GMT
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Surely that makes it crowdsourced or something, rather than open-source. That's exactly what it is. The designs aren't free to use, the designs are owned by the company who trade as Local Motors and, as pointed out above, can't really be made at home unless you have a £50 rapid prototyping CNC mill or something. Go back a few years and this was, in my opinion, something much more unique and interesting. They had a big online design forum where all of the parts were decided on and any custom bits were designed by all of the members working together (worked better than that sounds). The business model was to have microfactories in as many states as possible and for people to buy the kit and muck in to assemble their own Rally Fighter and those of others who bought at the same time. I think you got your kit and build cheaper if you did lots of hours at the factories before your car was built. This piece in PopMech explains it better than I can: www.popularmechanics.com/cars/reviews/preview/local-motors-rally-fighter-off-road-test-driveI love this video, my little boy watches is all the time. That's episode seven in a ten (?) part series produced a couple of years ago by Local Motors explaining the process. Might be worth watching the others to find out what it was all about. The website linked to in the OP looks like the latest iteration of the ongoing project and, sadly, it's gotten more and more conventional as time goes on both in terms of the car and the company's business model. In the very early stages there was supposed to be a BMW turbodiesel option, which was loads more expensive than the petrol V8, with some sort of facorty support but that fell through and the people who ordered it were refunded and got a V8 but still took to the forums to moan. While the Rally Fighter builds were getting underway, thedesign forums got back into action and started looking at what they could build next. I think they decided on a mobile hunting and camping platform or something else that was super-niche. No idea how that went. On the bright side, it's turned into a low volume kit car manufacturer putting out a great, albeit expensive, product and they seem to be making enough money to stay in business. -Edited to say- Some good info-porn in this ebBay ad for a completed car. cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180900084192-More Edit- Some build-porn in this video:
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Last Edit: Oct 13, 2012 19:12:00 GMT by Battles
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Oct 12, 2012 13:55:30 GMT
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Oct 11, 2012 20:43:06 GMT
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I've really enjoyed the Built From eBay vids, I was a total cynic at first but it's good TV. www.builtfromebay.com/
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Oct 11, 2012 20:28:01 GMT
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Oct 11, 2012 14:18:42 GMT
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Just weld it to the bumper Al, what could possibly go wrong?
When did you get the Vitara? [EDIT] Just read your extensive build thread that was linked from your sig. I love that you were buying bits for it before you'd even picked it up.
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Last Edit: Oct 11, 2012 14:21:28 GMT by Battles
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Oct 11, 2012 13:34:26 GMT
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Main beam only I'm afraid, in the UK its illegal to have more than two dip beams as far as i'm aware. Yup. I bought a Mini with three spots that all came on as dipped headlights. The police were unhappy about the odd number as well as the fact that they couldn't be switched off. In fairness, they didn't write me up because they both liked Minis but said they'd be keeping their eyes open for the car so I had better get it fixed.
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Oct 11, 2012 10:33:34 GMT
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I wonder what they *actually* make on the rollers.... I'm guesing about 300 region with torque numbers similar to large boats.... I'm sure I read that owners could specify the standard customer spec engine as offered by Chrysler or a performance build, but the stats were never offered. Maybe Chrysler have published stats on a customer spec engine, so you don't have to rely on the stats for one of the Chrysler models of that era? I read an account of an owner's experience of ordering then owning a Bristol in one of the car mags a few years ago. I think the factory kicked up a stink because they didn't want the details discussed and gave the owner a hard time for letting the magazine do a makeshift review of the car.
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Oct 11, 2012 10:15:02 GMT
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There's a DVLA form (V888) that lets you make a request for details of the owner of a vehicle. If the plate is on retention, it might not be covered. Also, you need to state what they call reasonable cause to need the details and I don't know if they think saving a few quid on the price of a plate will be enough.
It might be a company selling it and my experience with them is that the advertised price is flexible, you are allowed to negotiate. I wasn't buying a particularly expensive plate but I managed to get them down to £220 from what they advertised as their minimum price of £349. Give it a try.
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Oct 10, 2012 14:05:59 GMT
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Seat arosa 1.4 tdi, £30 tax (if after the 2001 switch) Cheap ins Excellent mpg They're also surprisingly big when the seats are folded down, making them handy for dog/stuff carrying. I had a 1.4 petrol auto that I struggled to give away and now totally regret giving away. The yank-tank suggestions here have been the best. If I had such a short commute, I would definitely be rolling yank.
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Oct 10, 2012 13:52:43 GMT
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Semi-rational want: I see this pick up knocking around Edinburgh a lot and I've become strangely jealous of it's owner. It's rough and ready, it's lived in, it looks a bit hillbilly - all of which make me want it more. It's semi-rational because my wife and I work for ourselves and have had to hire vans a few times recently. This could easily earn it's keep. Oddly, the pic above isn't my pic though it is the exact pickup I've been lusting after. I've not been able to get a pic of it but when I Googled "Sherpa Pickup" this was one of the top twenty pics.
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Footman James declined to renew the bike policies I had with them because they're not proper old and classicy, just at that awkward retro age. They also said they wouldn't do a motor policy for an '82 W123 unless I already had another policy with them. They're not what they used to be.
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