Treewolf

Brasso (as above) or Solvol Autosol polish used carefully can recover badly scratched CDs and DVDs, provided the scratch is on the shiney side. Scratches on the label side are usually unrepairable and the disc may not be recoverable.

I thought it was worth mentioning this on here, hopefully no-one's yet suffered this. We are all nowadays alert to vehicles which seem to be following us round, possibly trying to find yards, depots, tool stores, etc. On a Landrover forum I am on, a member from Durham has just found a magnetic tracker stuck behind the rear crossmember of his virtually brand new Defender 90 (and no, it was not out there by the dealer). A similar thing is reported as having been found by someone on a Lotus forum. He has taken it to the police who, perhaps predictably, were not interested and told him to throw it away. The guy is of course now paranoid about security, understandably so. The device is a GPS based unit with a foreign SIM card in it, and googling shows that it is of a type which can be bought for around £150, which I suppose is a cheap investment if it allows you to steal a Defender. It is also apparently becoming the preferred way for the scumbags to find steal-to-order vehicles since they only have to see it on the street, whack a tracker on, and they know where you live. It also seems to me that it is the perfect way to find out where you keep tools and equipment. So be alert! If it hasn't happened yet in the arb world I am (sadly) sure it is just a matter of time. (There have incidentally been many suggestions as to what the guy who found it should do with it)!

Tdci is not really any more complex or technical than the Td5 and the electrical bits are every bit as reliable. The weaknesses with the Puma Defender mostly come from the changes needed to fit the Ford engine and box in, eg the gearbox adaptor shaft failure problem.

I have two of the small Tirfors (one is a T800 and one a TU8) and rate them both highly. Bear in mind that they are rated for lifting and an 800kg lift capacity (at 5:1 safety factor) makes them comparable to most vehicle electric winches typically of 2000kg (at 2:1, since vehicle winches are not rated for lifting). If I could only have one Tirfor, it would probably be a 1600Kg one, but the small ones are so portable and light that I find I am reaching for one more often than any of the larger sizes.

As far as I know you were entirely legal and as it was your tree doing the right (and public-spirited) thing.

I have always been led to belive that Rights-of-Way laws allow a member of the public to clear a right of way enouigh to be able to pass an obstruction, but not to remove any of the arisings. It is also an offence to go equipped specifically to clear a right of way without permission (the principle is that you can use what you normally have with you on the journey to clear an obstruction, but you can't carry tools specifically to clear an obstruction and which have no other purpose, nor can you set out with the intention of clearing an obstruction you know to be present). On that basis, anyone can clear a fallen tree from a road to allow them to pass, but not remove the timber - removing the timber would technically be theft (unless you could convince a court if needed that you only took it to keep it safe until you could return it to its rightful owner, which might be difficult)! An arborist should be better place to clear a passage since there is an obvious legitimate reason for having the tools with you without the going equipped problem - they're the tools of your trade. You won't get paid, of course, and there is also the question of insurance. As a pro arborist your indemnity insurance may cover you but it would be sensible to check. An ordinary member of the public almost certainly will not have any form of public liability insurance etc for such activities, and although there is no legal requirement for them to be insured it could potentially be disastrously expensive if it went wrong. I suspect that the law was really intended for the situation in which you can drag the out branch out of the way, rather than cut up a fallen tree. Note also that the right to clear an obstruction does not extend to a right to move a motor vehicle which is obstructing the highway - it only covers "natural" obstructions.

The power head is an Emak (at least on recent-ish ones). Useful tools, I have 2 and use them a lot on railway track work, drilling holes for chairscrews, inserting chairscrews, and running fangbolt and fishbolt nuts. The only problem is it's a big heavy tool (1" sq dr) and I'm getting too old to use one for a day without really, really regretting it afterwards.

Not any more, it doesn't. All modern rolling stock has retention tanks. Heritage railways are a different matter though.

I read somewhere that the first one came down before the farm was built. If true it makes you think that perhaps it wasn't the smartest place to build. I notice in some photos that there's an earth berm protecting the nearest pylon - as if that will stop a rock that big!

Dog poo in the hole in the hedge works quite well and is of course legal. In emergency, remember that pigs will eat anything (just get rid of any teeth first).

It probably isn't a Dual Purpose Vehicle because the unladen weight is likely to be too high - over 2040kg ulw and it loses DPV status.

Glad you and the 'Mog are OK, and thanks for coming on here to set the record straight.

Can anyone point me to a simple guide to 'Mog model numbers, something that would explain to a 'Mog-numpty the differences between say a U1300 and a U1250 etc.? Perhaps if one of the 'Mog experts here had a few minutes they could post something. Also what are the differences between an ag-spec and a non-ag-spec? I love Mogs and hanker after one (can't justify it, sadly), but I have a feeling that the subject is a bit of a minefield for the uninitiated! Thanks

Could you not fit an audible alarm (like the overload hooter on a crane) for temperature, so if no-one's in the cab you still get a warning?

I suspect that there may well be a reserve, in which case if your high bid is below it you won't get the item. My interpretation (fwiw) of that particular condition is that they are under no obligation to sell to the highest bidder, so if they consider that the high bid is not high enough they don't need to sell, or if for som reason they choose to accept a bid from an underbidder a higher bidder has no redress. But I may be wrong of course! There is some interesting gear coming up at the moment, that's for sure.

Given that they've voluntarily "abandoned ship" does the maritime law of salvage apply - if I salvage it can I keep it?

I wonder why it stopped, given that both the air intake and exhaust seem to be well above the water still. Electronics, or driver bottle-loss?

An excellent and deeply moving program! Clarkson really does these well. There was quite a lot of background that wasn't in the program, though. One point that wasn't made (or if it was I missed it) is that in July at those latitudes there is no darkness to aid concealment. Also not mentioned was the fact that right from the start PQ17 was planned as bait to lure the Tirpitz out of hiding, and details of the convoy were intentionally leaked via a double agent to the Germans. The convoy was initially protected not only by a cruiser force but at a greater range by Admiral Tovey's Home Fleet , complete with some very capable capital ships. In the event as the program showed the Admiralty managed to turn the convoy into one of our most shameful naval disasters of all time, at great expense in terms of men and tonnage. I think that most of us today can have no clue of just how awful it must have been to man the arctic convoys, and it is shameful that it took so long to recognise the supreme bravery and sacrifice that these men - ordinary men of extraordinary courage - made for our freedom. We need people like Clarkson to remind us just how much we owe them.

This is an increasingly common problem on the 2.4 TDCi engine in all fitments. The oil cooler fails and allows the oil (higher pressure) to leak into the cooling system (lower pressure). Another item to add to the growing list of not-terribly-good-design-features of this engine.

How about this bloke then? Makes the Welney driver look cautious. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFdj9qgxicM]floods 5th & 6th Sep 08 - YouTube[/ame]

Yes, and the law is the same for you and the granny, however there has been no suggestion that the LR driver broke the law. The Police did initially say they were considering prosecution but later backpedalled when they figured out the only questionable thing he'd done was to drive past an advisory road sign (the "road closed" sign) which isn't an offence. There was then some talk of a careless driving charge, but without any evidence of carelessness this also was quietly dropped.

I completely agree with you there!

I would completely agree that the LR driver needed a much greater skill level than the tractor driver, but we shouldn't assume that he didn't have the necessary skills. It is also worth noting that the entire length of that road has flood marker boards along both sides which are there specifically to make it possible to drive when flooded. This makes the apparent contradiction "we've put these markers here so you can drive this road when it's underwater but you're being criminally reckless if you use them" harder to reconcile. But perhaps the boards are only for the benefit of tractor drivers.

The things that bug me most about this particular film clip are 1) why has nobody criticised the tractor driver? If it was dangerous for one (holes in road, washed out bridges, etc) then it was for both. Both vehicles were evidently suitable, so you can't argue it's ok in a tractor but not ok in what is clearly a deep-wading prepared Landrover. 2) Everyone is judging the LR driver without (as far as I know) knowing anything about his local knowledge. It looks to me from the clip that he knows the road very well, he knows where it's deeper and shallower, he knows where the crown and edges are, and the extent of the camber. He quite possibly knows where any manholes are. He appears to me to have the right knowledge, right skills, and right equipment to undertake a trip most of us couldn't. To that extent he's not doing anything more dangerous than a tricky rock climb, for example, and we don't condemn that. I agree that the police can't congratulate this guy and have to use the incident to discourage less skilled stupid types from doing the same, but the police PR on this was crass to an alarming degree. I will be amongst the first to condemn those who drive unnecessarily through flooded streets and force bow waves into peoples homes, or drive their Audis into floods and drown them, etc, but I absolutely will not condemn everyone on the basis that if someone can't do it, no-one should be allowed to. We all fell trees, a hazardous undertaking, and we rightly criticise Joe Public when he comes to grief doing it. What makes us safe (well, safer) is we have the skills, tools, and knowledge to assess and minimise the risks, just like, I suggest, the Welney driver appears to have in those circumstances.

Thank you, that answers my question perfectly.