Sensible car maintenance advice?

[Profpointy]

Aye, Alvis Stolly for me please!

Just curious, but did you ever have one as a "works van" so to speak? (as you used the familiar "stolly")

I've not been in the services, but just liked them since I was a kid as they look like something out of Thunderbirds

 

[Levo-Lon]

Nissan 200sx was and still is also a great rear drift car..i loved mine..
i found the saphire i had after i crashed the 200sx a little dull lol

 

[perplexed]

Mind you, you were pished as a fart.

 

[perplexed]

The Reliant Robin van (as in Trotters Independent Trading) is not very heavy and will stand quite happily on its back door with nose pointing upwards.
Don't ask me how I know

A teacher at school had one.

Quite often, it was never in the same place in the car park that he'd left it in that morning...

 

[Drago]

Just curious, but did you ever have one as a "works van" so to speak? (as you used the familiar "stolly")

I've not been in the services, but just liked them since I was a kid as they look like something out of Thunderbirds

No chum, I'm not that old. They'd long gone I was in the mob, though we I'll had 1950 s Bedford 4 tonners. I've always liked them, and when I was a teenager a guy a few towns along had one in his front garden, which I used to go and stare at.

Definitely something Gerry Anderson would have come up with! It's debatable how legal they technically are due to their width, but that wouldn't top me owning one if I could.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

that's probably top of my dream car list - at least of anything I might realistically get as the 6x6 Alvis or Scammell are really only on the fantasy list.

Yes, l'd like a Stalwart too
My father-in-law was an Instructor on them, when he was based in Germany

There used to be two up at Tong Woods, the 4x4, motorcycling/MTB place between Leeds & Bradford
One was still swimmable!, but this was back in early 90's

The owner of one used to keep it at his house, in Dewsbury!


Re; the 101FC
There used to be a company in Doncaster (l think?) that made replacement chassis for them
They had coil-spring seats, & used Range Rover (or 110) axles
They'd even use Tdi's & 5-speed gearboxes
Plus power-steering, but even standard steering was okay, as it was low-geared
It was just the gear-shift that required double joints in your elbows

Mindst you, they were noisy sods at 65MPH!!

 

[jonny jeez]

Unless you spent years driving tail-happy cars like Cortinas and Sierras. The oversteer either wrote the car off or instilled in the driver a life-long reflex ability to control a rear end slide.

My father, taught me to drive and left my instructor to teach me how to pass my test. Dads lessons included handbrake turns in car parks when it rained (and when superstores actually closed on a Sunday!). I have had a few fishtail incidents, mostly in the snow but once on a motorway and all of that experience of no stress, controlled skids came immediately into play. I have managed to bring the car back under control each time. The motorway incident was a total 360 spin, after I hit some diesel on the bend of an approach lane

I think all learner drivers should experience skid pans before heading out on the roads, how else can you be expected to know how to react.

 

[Oldfentiger]

I think all learner drivers should experience skid pans before heading out on the roads, how else can you be expected to know how to react.

100% agree.
Grass track car racing honed my skid control

 

[raleighnut]

100% agree.
Grass track car racing honed my skid control

Snap, when I worked at a Garage the bosses Son had a grasstracker and I got to drive it in the 'novice' race (if he hadn't broken it before then.
Hillman Hunter with twin Weber 40 DCOEs, electric fan on a SAAB radiator behind the driver and internal fuel tank, great fun (and the reason I never drove on the road.................................................................I'm far too 'Lairy' to risk it, I'm bad enough on a pushbike)

 

[Oldfentiger]

Snap, when I worked at a Garage the bosses Son had a grasstracker and I got to drive it in the 'novice' race (if he hadn't broken it before then.
Hillman Hunter with twin Weber 40 DCOEs, electric fan on a SAAB radiator behind the driver and internal fuel tank, great fun (and the reason I never drove on the road.................................................................I'm far too 'Lairy' to risk it, I'm bad enough on a pushbike)

Ar, them were the days.
1 st year raced a Ford 100E
2nd year and Austin A99 Westminster.
3rd year a Frankenstein Hillman Minx 1600cc with 1390cc Rapier head and the 1-3/4" SU's off the Westminster, using home made swan-necks). God knows what the compression ratio was
Diff welded of course (no money for an LSD in those days).

 

[Profpointy]

My father, taught me to drive and left my instructor to teach me how to pass my test. Dads lessons included handbrake turns in car parks when it rained (and when superstores actually closed on a Sunday!). I have had a few fishtail incidents, mostly in the snow but once on a motorway and all of that experience of no stress, controlled skids came immediately into play. I have managed to bring the car back under control each time. The motorway incident was a total 360 spin, after I hit some diesel on the bend of an approach lane

I think all learner drivers should experience skid pans before heading out on the roads, how else can you be expected to know how to react.

mmm, I rather think the first part of your post is a good argument for not teaching about skids. Learning to control skids is all very well, but with a modern car there's really very little excuse for skidding unless you are driving like a twat in the first place - and I speak from experience of that having fishtailed yp the road culminating in a trip through the hedge. Analysing it afterwards I worked out lifting off the throttle was the wrong thing to do in a front wheel drive car in oversteer. Then the real lesson dawned on me - I should never have got myself into the situation of needing to handle a skid in the first place. Catching the skid is easy, but correcting the correction is harder, and correcting the correcrion to the correction was too hard for me at least - but again, shouldn't have needed to had I been driving competantly in the first place.

If you have had a number of fishtail incidents then, snow or otherwise, then you need to learn the real lesson of not driving too fast for the conditions. Please think about this as I'm not having an internet dig - I've been there

 

[HF2300]

Back end comes out, steer into it, nut not as much as instinct tells you, and stamp on the gas

In a rear wheel drive car? Are you sure?

 

[Jody]

In a rear wheel drive car? Are you sure?

How do you think people drift cars?

 

[HF2300]

Drifting is not correcting a slide, it's maintaining a controlled slide.

 

[Jody]

The retardation of the rear wheels due to engine braking mean you have more chance of seeing a ditch if you don't power through it. Depends entirely on the situation but if you don't apply power the back end will snap the opposite direction when traction returns (depending on angle and direction of travel). Most people can correct the initial slide but it takes a better driver to catch it when it snaps back and a good driver will be correcting the snap back momentarily before it happens. Sometimes your better just to steer away from the slide and spin as the momentum will carry the car straight rather than fire you off at angle into a ditch/wall.