Landies are ace!!!

Oops, I'll try again...

I meant to say that I do that too! Great fun keeping a constant speed in low range whilst others are burning clutches. I haven't got out and walked yet - must give that a try.

Maybe it is just that I find it easy to memorise the route once I've looked at the printed out map, so I don't find GPS to be that useful.

I think one of my problems with GPS is most people (myself included to start with!) rely on it entirely to plan their route and don't actually bother to see if the route it has chosen is really any good or not! When you look at a map if often becomes clear that taking a different route is far more preferable, plus you get a good idea of where you are in relation to other places so know what signs to look out for yourself. I mean, anyone that drives down stupid winding lanes instead of taking the huge wide road out of Bristol to the airport, or drives half way up a mountain isn't using it as an aid are they?! Once I started using maps I found that I rarely ever turned my GPS on so I got rid of it.

Course this is all with a background of my GPSs crashing just at the critical point and then me having to find somewhere to stop and spend 10 minutes re-starting and re-programming the bloody thing!! I guess the new dedicated systems are more reliable??

Matt

Ah yes, that handy pocket guide ;-)

Memorise? Wassat? What day is this? Who's house is this?

I have a good look before setting out, just to make sure it's not going to take me through city centres, it tries to take me through either Bath or Bristol city centre when I want to get to the M5 but there's an easy turn I can make on the journey that then re-routes me over a small toll bridge in Bathampton that skips most of Bath.

Yeah, but the satnav has a map on it too you know, so you can do that too. Also you can just use it as a moving map display, I've done that a few times. Needless to say I also have a road atlas in paper form!

Heh, when driving my mum to the airport from somewhere in Bristol centre I went the "wrong" way according to the locals and arrived 10 mins quicker than they did! In a diesel automatic.

I don't know about the dedicated systems but my palm-based one is OK, the only problems I really have are that I have to remember to start the app before putting it into the cradle, for some reason it won't spot the serial connection to the wired-in GPS if it's already there when it starts!

It's very useful indeed to have a road map of Britain in my pocket at all times, I use my PDA extensively as I have no memory, so a detailed map that takes up no extra space is great. I can estimate journey times quickly and pretty accurately with it.

Tom Woods came up with the following;:

... which is, to me, the obvious boon and benefit that a sat nav can brng. We use ours as an aid, not as a commander. We tell it where we want to go and we let it persuade us along routes that look interesting, 'specially when we have to use a diversion.

ive got a lpg overlay in my tomtom, though i havent spent enough time playing with tomtom (im usually just driving and listening to it!) to work out how to make it easily detour me via a garage when the tank gets low.

indeed, as long as you prepared to listen to what it says and then make a decision for yourself if you want to go that way (mine commonly tries to send me the wrong way down one-ways in the town!) it is geat.

if you dont like the look of the road it tries to take you down you can just ignore it and let it pick the next one anyhow :)

Either hit "Navigate to" then POI, then your LPG category and it'll list them in order of distance from you, then you select one and drive there. Or if you already have a route, hit "Find alternative", then "travel via", then POI, then LPG category and it'll direct you there, then afterwards it'll direct you on to your original destination.

try it when you have a passenger, makes a great impact! :). say 'can you just hold the wheel for me for a second', then climb out, jog round the truck and get back in! (make sure its not going to jump out of gear first too)

Always fun getting out and walking next to the vehicle.....especially in a Discovery

I had a look under the bonnet today after a long wait. The fan could easily be rotated with the engine off but still steaming hot. Shouldnt it be stiff or dopes that o0nly happen if engines running?

Nige

Trouble is mine would probably jump out of gear if I did that :(

notice that i mentioned that in my follow up!. i can get out of mine and walk when it is in 1-low or 4-low but 2nd and 3rd are a tad risky!

And another trick is to grab your camera, say to the passenger "grab the wheel and " and then jump out run ahead of the vehicle, and take a picture of them. All this on private land of course, I wouldn't suggest getting out of the vehicle and walking alongside would get you any points in a driving test :-)

Dave

On or around Tue, 18 Jul 2006 16:26:08 +0100, "Nige" enlightened us thusly:

rotated with the engine

engines running?

The viscous fan IME only starts turning for real when it's up near red on the dial. It shoudl of course spin at startup for 20-30 seconds, easily audile at road-going revs, and then spin down as the hub frees off. If yours doesn't do that I'd suspect it. Worth noting that the bit of the dial between the blue and the red (sometimes labelled "normal" is normal through out the range - it only represents quite a narrow temperature range. ABOVE normal is where "overheating" starts, i.e. into the red bit. Fitting instructions for kenlowe suggest that you run it 'til the needle is pointing about 3/4 of the way up normal (i.e. above common operating temperature), then tweak the knob til the fan cuts in, then turn it back slowly til the fan just cuts out.

so the cut-out temperature for the fan is slightly above normal, and the cut-in is most of the way up to the red. The viscous fan should work much the same - not doing much until it's needed.

diagnosis:

first, see that the fan pulls hard first thing in the morning, and that it spins down after 20-30 seconds of say about 2000 rpm. You can check that stationary with the bonnet open - if the fan's pulling hard, you'll be in no doubt :-)

If it doesn't do that, then I suggest replacing it anyway. If it spins but doesn't spin down at all, then it's safe enough to use but reduces your efficiency slightly.

next test: Try running the engine with the vehicle stationary (in D with T-box in neutral for autos) at about 3000 rpm. Watch the gauge closely, and listen for the fan spinning up - it makes a distinctive roar when pulling hard, and more or less no noise when idling. If the temp pointer gets to the bottom of the red without the fan spinning up, then I'd suspect it. If it does that, don't just shut off - drive round gently to cool the motor down a bit first... I reckon most of the damage due to overheating is down to too-rapid cooling.

If you've got aircon, check the aircon fans if it has them, they too should cut in (but possibly only with the aircon on). Not sure if P38s have 'em, the classics definitely did - supposed to give extra airflow for when you're idling with the aircon on.

Having said all that, BiL Tim had no end of bother with his 3.9 overheating and in the end removed the aircon rad and decommissioned the aircon. Having done this he fired up the engine and nearly got choked by the cloud of dust and debris that got blown out of the engine bay. The aircon rad does compromise airflow and thus cooling on the classic. again, don't know about P38s.

On or around 18 Jul 2006 03:05:46 -0700, "ChavScum" enlightened us thusly:

it's almost certainly illegal, mind. practice somewhere with plenty of space first, too.

more fun if you have a soft-top series: having removed the canvas, sit up on the top of the seta back and look out over the top of the screen. You do this by bracing your left foot against the bulkhead.

IIRC the viscous fan also relies on centrifugal force and transmission fluid, using bimetallic strips to open and close valves that allow a transmission fluid into a pair of concentric spinning grooved discs, one driven by the engine, the other on the fan hub. The fluid then transfers torque from the engine to the fan hub, making it spin faster. The centrifugal force is used to spin the liquid into the grooves, so if the description is accurate (taken IIRC from the workshop manual) then even if the fan was hot enough to trigger the valves, you'd still be able to spin it with your hand.

On or around Wed, 19 Jul 2006 14:22:24 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

Probably why they spin up initially when they've been standing and then wind down again. I expect the fluid gradually gets all to the bottom.

Bin there done that, the heater is an excellent supplement to a failing radiator. One day I really will get round to changing the fan for an electric one.

Quite. I have not been in the red yet, but I get perilosly close, which is when I resort to the heater being nervos after last year when my engine died of a cracked block.

What is worrying me at the moment is driving to Bath, there are some nasty stretches of the Fosse way that are bound to strain things.