and today i have mostly been...

[Doggy]

Indeed - a DW10B.
Unfortunately not another mighty DW12, but probably the next best thing.


In other news, my camper has a flat battery, (or 3). The storage site rang and asked for permission to move it two spaces over, then confirmed it's flat. (I suspected as much when the tracker company reported no response from it this month). 2 hours of pouring over manuals from the coachbuilder and the basic Iveco Daily underpinings and I'm no wiser as to where the starting battery lives or what spec it is.

Ah well, maybe the new 096 battery I had to get about 6 weeks ago for the 406 will find employment for a bit longer than I envisaged. Wednesday being the new Friday in my semi-retarded world, I shall endeavour to resuscitate said camper tomorrow.

[Welly]

If it was me, I'd start by looking under the driver/passenger seat for the battery, I can't explain why but that's where I'd expect it to be.

[steve_earwig]

Doesn't it have swivelly seats? Employ a small child to follow the cables back from the starter? The coachbuilder could have put it anywhere

Yamaha cylinder head -> mechanic. It took a little longer than expected, the mechanic said to tell the engineering shop not to grind the valve seats and not to confuse the tappet shims, even though valve clearances was one of the jobs it needed doing. The guy in the machine shop (actually Krešo Čukman http://www.centarglavamotora.hr/ twangy music alert) said not re-cutting the seats was only doing half the job and they could sort out the valve clearances too. Looking at the amount of cylinder heads they were working on I thought maybe it would be better for them to do it, they do sort of specialise in that kind of thing. However I had to phone through the clearances from home and I got his bother, who wrote it all down but failed to pass it on All done now though, it looked splendid if a little puny compared to some of the other stuff they were working on

[steve_earwig]

Bottom step going on... and off...and on...and off again... Dammit, I'm 15mm out Ffs, I've never done anything like this before so the world's lucky it's not 15CM out

[Welly]

"measure twice and cut once"

Hope this helps.

[steve_earwig]

Stick piece of metal in place with a magnet. Hold straight edge along desired cut line and mark with marker pen. Take piece of metal to, erm, cutting floor Cut along mark to the edge, use set square to carry mark around corner, finish cut along line. Clean up cut with flappy wheel and bevel edges. Take to job, hold in place with magnet again and tack it on. Check with straight edge: Miles out. Go mad.

My favourite seems to be I only pay attention to the units and completely forget the 10's, so I'll measure, say, 34, go to cut it and by that time in my head it's ?4 and if I'm lucky I'll realise, or I might just cut it 24 or 44.

[steve_earwig]

A


B


A+B (+C)

[Doggy]

Looks good.
Understand your frustration - designing & building that from scratch must be like knitting fog, but with more resistive materials.

The pre-Brexit logistics panic saw me spending Thursday & Friday night shunting trailers around to no apparent purpose, so I'm finally off for my attempt to get the camper started in a bit. Spare battery, jump leads and foolish optimism at the ready. WCPGW?

[steve_earwig]

Oh lordy, good luck with that! I guess if all else fails you can jump it to the starter and then play "hunt the battery" at your leisure. If you can get to it...

[Doggy]

After a fruitless search of the many side lockers, I located the starting battery quite logically positioned under the bonnet, behind the n/s headlights.
Positive terminal accessible - just, negative terminal no hope whatsoever. No matter it has a beefy chassis, bolted together with nice big shiny plated screws. Jump leads onto the 406's battery & it started first turn of the key.


It's a blessing this happened - it forced me to dig my way in to the battery + terminal, which in turn forced me to move the aftermarket immobiliser / tracker that was cable tied onto two coolant hoses and had slid down them to a point where its metal case was within millimeters of shorting the battery to some nearby metal brackets.

Professional* installers.

I think I've managed to leave it with the solar panels working - the monitoring system reckoned they were delivering between 1.8 & 2.5A during a slightly overcast afternoon, so hopefully it'll be OK next time. (Expect I'll have spare battery with me anyway, just in case).

[steve_earwig]

Stand wherever you f**king like mate.


I just did.


Did a fair bit of jumping up and down too, on the worst places I could think of - after a 2-hour weld and grind-a-thon it ain't going nowhere

Now all I have to do it paint it cut some wood and screw it on Woo.

[steve_earwig]

Just seen your post there Eric (too busy dithering here), well done that man, sounds like a bit of a result there The output from the solar panels seems pretty healthy too.

Btw I finally found out why you're meant to connect the negative of your jump lead to anywhere other than the negative terminal of your target battery - to keep sparks away from it. I suppose once connected it'll start charging and hence producing hydrogen gas, pull the lead off, slight spark and...

[Doggy]

Staircase looks epic, well done.
Handrail could be fun*

Maybe some PVC trunking for the cables?

[steve_earwig]

Staircase looks epic, well done.

Why thank you! I'm fairly pleased with it. What do you reckon, screws or coach bolts for the wood?

Handrail could be fun*

Oh my lord Ok, to the left (easier but a nuisance up against the wall) or right (do-able but would have to be removable)? Wood or more damn welding?

Maybe some PVC trunking for the cables?

Too late! Would have needed to be massive anyway.

[Welly]

Very impressive Metal Art there Steve, looks very purposeful and well-made

Doggy isn't it funny* how you sometimes find things that are seconds away from going belly up? and you find yourself saying things like "i drove all the way to London like that" etc...

That's some fancy solar charger if you can log into it and get a live report