kevin the chicken

Happy birthday, I'll have a beer in your honour tonight

If the weather forecast is like it is this week you would be better off with a hull rather than chains

An oily rag on its own wont spontaneously combust otherwise there would be a lot of garage fires! Other than a direct chemical reaction between two volatile chemical most fires need an ignition source unless of course it is self heating by bacterial action. Went to a barn fire yesterday afternoon that was set off by an overheating heap of horse poo! With the popularity of recycling nowadays there are quite a few fires at recycling centres some of them caused by self heating. Not very environmentally friendly at all.

Similar yes, that's the later lighter version. They are quite fast considering that they are a tractor from the fifties. I think they do about thirty mph. I had a go on one across rougham airfield a few years ago trying to clear a misfire and it nearly shook all my fillings out when I had it opened right up. I think that had a conventional clutch and gearbox though. I would like one of those. Christ is right about the transmission, David brown called it the turbo transmitter, a fluid flywheel with the gears selected rather crudely by braking the transmission with a hand lever. Works ok though and driving is a smooth experience which is want you want if you are retrieving a bogged down plane with delicate undercarriage. the winch works through the box too so take up on that is smooth too. I've got a couple of tree stumps I need out so I might get it out and use the winch on them. According to the manual winch overload is indicated when the tractor is lifted up on the anchor four foot in the air, don't think I'm that brave!

David brown, weighs about 3 1/4 tons now I've removed the ballast. Four cylinder 40 horsepower petrol and has an 11,000lb winch with 300 ft of cable on the back. Bench seat for three people. All four wheels have full steel wings. Designed by David brown for hauling heavy bombers such as the Wellington and Lancaster with the auto transmission because the clutches on the fordsons slipped.

I have always used dexron 2, including in my 1943 aircraft tug which has an auto transmission of sorts. It is ok to use in anything that specified dexron1 which basically takes you back to the stone age. Backwards compatible was the expression that stuck in my head!

Got to replace two o rings on the heater in the range rover as it is leaking coolant in to the footwell. The rings only cost about six quid but my local 4x4 dealer said allow yourself a full day to fit them as half the dash and fittings on the drivers side have to come out. Deep joy, my favourite sort of job. May have to break it up with a blast in the kit.

If the footwell is a bit tight then you can do what I did, get a cheap pair of karting boots. Just gives me that extra bit of room to move my feet around. Somebody on here is bound to have the variant you are looking at. You may end up maintaining it more than driving it but if you are capable and happy to do it then go ahead. Have a look on the Internet to see what triumph spares are available. I would imagine there are people supplying new and second hand triumph spares out there, I can think of one not far from me but can't recall their name. As the duck says there are no specific issues with bushes, just use good quality poly ones.

Would that be the one that feeds its used hops to pigs?

I can do the long melford one but only on the Sunday. Working Saturday's is really starting to p me off, it ruins so many opportunities to go out.

I put mine on with the plastic fittings and pads and haven't had any trouble from them yet. Be mindfull that once they have been pushed on you can't get them off again without cutting them off and buying some more

The only trouble with using them is that it is impossible to just buy the thing you were after! They have so much good stuff and their service is really good too.

Belt and braces. Put some hose clips on, you don't know if they will work loose when they get warm. Then you can forget about them and worry about something else that needs sorting.

My neighbour went last year and said it was a good show so I have booked in for the Sunday.

Hope they are more reliable than the old one. I remember someone telling my that they had travelled thirty miles from bury st Edmunds to Cambridge and had seen four broken down or abandoned by the side of the road. I hasten to add this was probably in the early eighties!

Less than 20miles for me, might go on the Sunday but need to check my diary first

When I sealed around my radiator to ensure that I got maximum flow through it I realised that there was not much air flow to the carbs. Before there were odd gaps for air but most of it had to have come through the radiator. Despite having read that ducting air wouldn't make much difference to performance I figured that it ought to have a dedicated supply so I put in a large flexible pipe with a bell mouth mounted behind the grille. It made loads of difference to performance, really noticeable. Hopefully yours should show an improvement too.

I have plumbed my header tank so that the top hose goes to the overflow pipe on the radiator and the bottom outlet goes in to the bottom hose from the radiator before it enters the engine. This is on a red top engine. I fitted a blank cap to the top of the radiator with just one conventional one on the header tank. Like you because of height restrictions I could only manage to get the bottom of the header level with the top of the radiator but when the tank is half filled that is the highest coolant level in the car. Any air in the system bleeds back to the header tank, I checked the radiator was full by loosening the blank cap and it was, something that never happened before I fitted the header. The header has an outlet for an overflow bottle allowing any overfill to escape. Works well especially with the nightmare air locks I used to get, drilled a small hole in the thermostat too. Now I just fill it up and I'm done, no loosening hoses, taking bleed screws out or continually topping up

Have you damaged a flexible hose when you turned the calliper around?

You could probably reuse the tights too. Make sure you take them off her first. Would have thought that as the oil was still blowing out that it was still being picked up and pumped every where it should have been. Lucky you noticed when you did or it probably wouldn't have ended well.

Is it for cooling or for induction?

Don't wast your money on second hand hoses, work out what you need then go on eBay and order silicone as they are much easier to work with than rubber. They slip on easier and seal much better when you tighten they up as they are more supple. I used auto silicone hoses, they have loads of listings for all sizes, angles and colours. Doesn't work out that expensive either as you only do it once avoiding lost coolant and hassle. I reckon I did my complete set on my red top for less than fifty pounds

Nobody will ever accuse you of being a couch potato!

I don't care if it's another weekend as I found out last week that I have to work that Saturday and all the leave slots are taken

If anybody is thinking about entering this one you'd better get your skates one because there is a limit of 250 cars and when I looked today there were already 185 entries. My entry is going in the post tomorrow!