bizzard

Probably more chance of getting pecked on the nose by a Buzzard than having trouble with hooligans.

The beauty of the old batteries with the exposed cell connecting bars on top, was. If you had several old batteries that had dead cells in them but some cells which were still good and seviceable you could drill into the appropriate good cell connecting bars to make terminals and connect up the six cells required with cables to get your 12v, omitting the deadun's. Batteries lasted much longer by this proceedure too, its was just the extra space needed which could be a problem

I know it defeats the object of these pumps being ''on demand'' pumps, but if after use and your not going to open taps for some time, turn it off, crack open a tap and release the pressure and then close the tap, even if its only for the over night period. Leaving them under constant pressure seems to distort the plastic body a bit over time causing the leak. I've always done this and the last time I replaced my Surflo pump was 2004. Mind you I never shower or bath, its unatural for us hewmans. My mum said to me at an early age, ''water is bad for you, keep drenching yourself with water washes away all those wonderful natural oils that protect things. My dad agreed with this whole heartedly as he saved quite a bit on his water rate and electricity bill for the immersion heater. After a while your stinkiness will disapear just like like magic as the natural oils take charge and smother and imprison them. Poor pumps. How would you like it if someone came along and clamped a big crocodile clamp on your nose, stuffed a compressed air line in your mouth, filled you up with air at 35psi, clip your mouth off with a hose clip around your lips and walked away. I bet it wouldn't be long before you started to leak. This I believe was an old WW2 Japanese method of torture only done with water,they went over the top though by jumping about on the tummy whilst under pressure.

I agree, they're brilliant off road, proper low range transfer gearbox to, as has the latest version of it the Suzuki Jimny

Oh, I agree. As I said those horrid mods aren't done today anything like they used to be, by mostly youngsters of course. Most younsters don't like any hard graft these days and certainly don't like dirtying their hands. Apart from a few all they seem to want to do is play computer games and aps and stuff.

A classic example of what I was on about above was a couple of years ago. Alad here had seem an old Suzuki SJ410 for sale locally and he asked me to go wih him to check it out. Oh lord, it was jacked up and fitted with massive oversize wheels. Well I thought, I might as well road test now I'm here. I only went about half a mile and turned back. The handling was absolutely diabolical, the wheel being continually almost yanked out of my hands at every slight imperfection and manhole in the road, very very highly dangerous. The thing had been offered for sale with a fresh MOT too. A shame because those little 4X4 vehicles were quite brilliant in there day if kept standard as factory supplied.

One of the biggest problems MOT tester are comfronted with are daft alterations carried out to otherwise standard production cars, not just attempts to uprate the engine power but serious amature alterations that can make the vehicle dangerous to drive like changing the original standard steering wheel for one of tiny diameter, though not done so much these days. Mucking about putting enormous over size not standard wide wheels and tyres on which lollop about over any uneven bumps and other odd road surfaces and camber, trying to steer the steering wheel and you instead of the other way round making the driver fight the steering, in other words if the driver relaxes the grip on the wheel too much the car can suddenly dive off to left or right big time if one or the other front wheels happens to hit a bump or pothole in the road. Putting oversize diameter wheels on the rear whithout adjusting the front wheels caster angle to compensate which can't be done cheaply and not at all on most cars, can make the car under steer very very dangerousely. These kind of stupid alterations are not carried out as much these days as they were a few years ago, thank goodness. Once upon a time before rolling roads came into use the cars brakes had to be road tested using the brake test Tapley meter, the road test also showed up any horrid handling vices at the same time, which daft conversions and alterations to the cars steering and suspension geometry, wheels and tyres had caused. For these kinds of reasons I think vehicles should still be road tested as certain horrid handling peculiarities cannot in most cases be detected by just a visual inspection on a ramp or over a pit, especially if the tester is only a tester and has not the complete understanding that a proper qualified mechanic of long standing will or should have.

I wrote rubbish.

You could always apply to have the old prop sing on the X factor show, Simon Cowell would like that.

Yes. Adjmar told me that they rubbed some special oils into it which keeps it fresh, luxurient and smelling nice. He promised to get me some when I began losing my hair but he forgot. I'll might remind him, but I think its too late.

Apparently, my old friend Adjmar Singh Mann, whom I taught mechanicing years ago told me it was not only for religious reasons why they wouldn't remove their turbans but also because of the sheer voluminous amounts of hair on their heads, They're evidently are not allowed to ever wash or cut it and its all piled up on their napper like spaghetti held together with elastic bands and the turban to stop it all breaking loose and flowing everywhere. This is a true story. I once went to Heathrow airport to meet someone off a plane and was sitting in the arrivals area waiting when along came a group of Indians with huge turbans on. The leader approached be and asked if I could keep an eye on and help if necessary one of their number who'd never ever left India before and couldn't speak our lingo whilst the others went back to immigration for some reason or other. Of course I will, I replied. The chap they'd left in my charge was huge, handsome and looked like a prince with jewels and broaches all over him. Anyway he must have got completely fagged out after the flight, jet like I expect, for he suddenly unrolled his highly colourful sleeping mat on the middle of floor in front of us all and lay down to sleep. It was a really restless sleep, dreaming, and what looked like Nightmares although it was only about 1pm so I expect they were Daymares really, tossing and turning, to and fro. Well his jolly old turban came unfastened, all the bands pinged off and his hair began to unravel. I'm not joking there was an enormous amount of it which all got tangled up in his tossing and turning, tangled up all around him too. I didn't like to wake him and spoil his sleep though. When his party returned, they'd brought be a nice cup of tea which was very kind of them, woke up their relation, spent many minutes untangling him and lead him away to fix him all back together again proper like. I don't think they took him to the barbers though..

When the wearing of crash helmets became law for motor bikes around 1974, I remember our Indian friends kicked up a big stink about it because they refused to remove their turbans to don the helmet, for religious reasons. So a new law was passed that allowed them to ride mopeds only, with turbans on. I nearly started a business manufacturing GRP tuban styled look alike crash helmets in all the appropriate different colours of the rainbow to suit their various religious occasions, which are quite numerous.

I think bus drivers drive half asleep these days, buses too easy to drive, automatic, power steering, power air brakes, air cushion seats, heating making them drowsy, no muscular effort required at all to drive, no exercising of limbs, too comfy altogether, therefore I think they just nod off between stops sometimes. Bring back the old RT style buses, slower, narrower, much harder to drive, pre-selector gearboxes, heavier steering, heavier hoof pressure needed for braking, nice chilly cabs, dodgy windscreen wipers, conductor stamping on the floor above their head to give him the GO signal, all helped kept them wide awake, on the ball, alert and much much fitter.

Vehicles like buses, huge great brutish SUV's, stupidly wide luxury cars Like Audi A6's , in fact all cars are getting wider and wider, ridiculousely wide, with big wide threatening tyres and wheels half stickin out, all lumbering around with headlights blazing in broad sunny day light whilst the country lanes, most B roads and many A road and single cabbage-ways don't-can't get any wider, ridiculous and absurd. Bad for both cyclists and pedestrians alike. Especially the pedestrian who wander about willy-nilly glued to their mobile phone-tablet thingy.

Fresh air isn't. Stuff like Jam goes bad if you leave the lid off the jar and let the fresh air in. This happens to boats steel base plates too, in my humble opinion. Each time you dry dock or haul it out the fresh air oxygen gets at your wet, damp steel bottom and speeds up the rust and corrosion rate. Fresh air is not good for anything.