Digsy

Yes, and because of the prevailing ultra PC social backdrop that the majority of decent, hard working, law abiding people have to operate within, this dislike is getting more and more repressed and running deeper and getting uglier every day. The authorities need to be seen to be taking control of issues like this rather than just sticking their heads in the sand and hoping they will go away or politely integrate with society, because by their inaction they are giving the general populace a common enemy to unite them in a time of financial difficulty and unemployment. This is a very, very dangerous thing. It is soon going to get to the stage where it will only take a bit of a push to start a lot of social unrest, and if the wrong kind of person or people provides that push then things could go very wrong indeed. I'm no particular fan of this govnernment, but I am grown up enough to recognise that running a country is probably a lot harder than the man in the street realises, and when push comes to shove I have to admit that I would rather have a government elected by people who are relatively well off then a political party that represents nothing more than the anger of a ragtag collection of dissaffected yobs who suddenly find themselves in power purely because of a protest vote gone wrong. This post isn't intended to be racist, and it isn't even a rant about any particular group. For the record I find anyone who refuses to pull their weight and do their bit for the greater society equally repulsive regardless of race, colour or creed. But I am getting very concerned about the possible future for this country over the next 5-10 years if stuff like this is allowed to contnue.

Seeing these people race horses on a busy road just adds another layer of hatred on top of the mountain of hatred that I already built on the foundation of hatred that I have for them.

I thought of that but that means the OS has to be still running in order to recognise that those buttons have been pressed. If I have to reset mine its usually because it has completely stopped responding.

If you get a lightened flywheel then everything else will rattle

Can I ask a dumb question? With my old HD2 I have to force a soft reset about once a month by taking the battery out. How would one do that on this phone? Is there a reset button hidden somewhere?

You could try my handy VIN plate decoder, which usually either works really well, or doesn't.

Where is the oil actually fed to the cam journal? I can't tell from that pic. Is it something to do with the dogleg shaped slot in the bottom of the pic that looks like its full of something? Unfortunately I would say the head is fubar'ed.

Shot blasting can improve the fatige life of a stressed part like a rod. It pits a small amount of compressive stress into the surface, which must first be overcome by any tensile stress before the suafeca material can be "stretched". Its like a chaep alternative to fillet rolling on a crankshaft.

Funnily enough I have just applied for a mortgage and the lender insisted that I have a financial review on the telephone as part of the application process. This was different to the actual application and agreement in principle - they called me a few days later. During the "review", as expected they "assessed my needs" for death and critical illness cover and repayments protection (which they are now pushing as a more general income protection product). The whole thing was clearly just a selling exercise but I was quite surprised that they wouldn't say that it was without obligation unless pushed. They also kept repeating that they "really preferred" people to have some kind of cover in place. There was a clear implication that I really ought to be insuring myself. Looks like the lenders still havn't learned their lesson.

Well apart from crossing the t's and dotting the i's I signed up for a three year fixed rate at 3.29% today. Quite glad having just read this!

Interesting info on when the best rates might be around, but unfortunately due to circustances beyond my control I have to get this sorted out now. HSBC were on the shortlist but I already know that I don't qualify for their lending criteria for interest only. To be more specific, I need interest only without any proof of a "repayment vehicle" apart from the eventual sale of my house. In my experience over the past couple of weeks there are very few lenders that will allow this without adding extra criteria that you have to have a house worth £250,000 or £150,000 equity, or a second home or some such. I suspect that the lenders are worried about a future wave of mis-selling claims for interest only loans when borrowers suddenly find they won't be able to pay off their mortgages before they retire. Hence they are trying to make you prove you will still be able to buy a home after you have sold and downsized to pay off your mortgage. You're right about building societies being most competitive. LTV isn't an issue as I'm under 50% (assuming my house is worth what I think it is).

Yes, that's exacly what I'm looking at.

Yeah thats what I think. I have looked at some very low rate trackers but once you factor in the charges they all even out, plus you have the added risk of the base rate going up. Similar story with discounted rates except the risk is even higher.

I am in the process of re-mortgaging and have narrowed my choices down to two products, both fixed rates, both with the same lender, one for two years and the other for three years. The three year deal has a 0.25% hgher rate than the two year. I usually look at two or three year deals, and go for the cheapest overall (including all upfront fees and fees added to the loan) over those periods. The three year is £360 more expensive overall at the two year point. I am also looking at the potential to overpay my mortgage. I cant quite commit to going back to a "proper" repayment mortgage yet so I am going to get an interest only mortgage and then overpay it by as much as I can each month. This gives me more flexibility but it also limits the lenders that I can go to. The two year deal would allow me to pay off £750 more by the two year point. Two years ago the best deal I could get that fitted my criteria was 2.73%. Now it is 3.04% Yes, there are lower rates out there but I haven't gone into specifics about lenders and rates here because individual lenders' terms and charges plus the peculiarities of my mortgage plans for this year are too complex to go into but suffice to say that I have compared all the current top deals on a like-for-like basis to get me to these two. So my question is, do you think the extra cost and lower overpayment potential is worth fixing at a slightly higher interest rate? I have already lost out on my preferred deal because the lender put their rates up by 0.2% in the few days it took me to go from making a shortlist to getting a deciion in principle. I know these deals change all the time and go down as well as up, so I'm wondering about what might happen over the longer term.

Doh. How did I miss that?

Auto or manual?

Its a measure of how much load the engine is under. The closer to atmospheric it is, the wider the throttle is open. Old BMWs used to use something similar as an "economy" gauge.

Is this from one Lloyds account to another? If so you should be able to do a "quick transfer" online or over the phone. I'm guessing you want to transfer into a non-Lloyds account as thats when they usually want to do a verification by phone.

The most likely answer to that has alredy been posted, but there is a possibility that Toyota might have had a plan to do future variants with higher outputs that never got made. No, there's no way of knowing, but inline 6 engines do have (by definition) long, bendy crankshafts which suffer from torsional vibrations. I'd be surprised to see an I6 without a damper.

Bearing wear is mainly down to oi film thickness which is related to the in bay-balancing of the piston and rod (i.e. the crank counterweights). However, what everyone misses with the 2JZ (no matter how many times I mention it ) is that its crank damper is two-mode. It has a torsional AND a bending damper. Crankshaft bending would affect bearing edge loading so in this case I would say running without one may promote bearing wear.

Absolutely spot on. Back in the day high end computer stress analysis was reserved for main castings only because it took so long to construct the models. This would have been in the days before 3D CAD was widspread and all the associated downstream processes could share data. Cranktrain was all done by "classical calculation". Nowadays its routine to do full blown FEA on stuff as mundane as wiring harness brackets. Unfortunately the days of bottom ends with seemingly limitless strength are coming to an end. Engines will continue to have higher and higher specific outputs straight from the factory, but the internals will be pared down to the quick to save cost, mass and friction.

Completely wrong, and I've been doing base engine design for nearly 20 years so I know what I'm on about. The fact is that all engine cranktrains will be subjected to the same level of analysis. Its true that the going in position might not be "lets see if we can eliminate the TV damper in the crank pulley this time" but rather at the most fundemental level of design and analysis there will be an assessment of the level of torsional and bending stresses in the crank through the rev range. The aim will be to make the crank as skinny as possible to save inertia and weight and it is at this point that the first stab at the tuning of the damper will arise. If it is found at this stage that there is any chance at all that the engine doesn't need a damper then the OEM will certainly elect not to fit one because it will be cheaper for them. OEMs do not fit parts just for the hell of it. When it comes to any kind of modding, whether it is "acceptable" or not comes down to another bugbear of mine - engine durability. In order for an OEM to sign off an engine for production they have to pass rigourous dyno and in vehicle testing. In the case of the crank pulley, the pulley manufacturer will often visit to do physical measurements of the crankshaft vibration to confirm the damper is correctly tuned. To me, a durable engine will run for several hundred hours (>600) on an engine dyno at full chat without any failures at all. To the end user, durable usually means it will get them to work and back via the shops every day for a few years with the occaisional blat at weekends. I have experience of engines with a badly tuned crank damper that did snap crankshafts very quickly on dyno test. However, I suspect that in the real world this kind of failure would be pretty rare but the key thing is there is no way of knowing. Why not turn the challenge around and ask your mate if he would be happy to fit his solid pulley and then subject his engine to an industry standard durability test?

I guess that would do it. I should have said that mine is an oil boiler. Luckily parts for the burner seem to be pretty universal and comparitively simple to get hold of.

Just out of interest, how do boilers go when they "pack up"? I've had a conventional boiler in my house since 1996 and (touch wood) its going OK but most parts in the burner assembly have been replaced as those bits are cheap as chips compared to a whole new boiler. Mine has had new motor bearings, a whole new motor, new pump and oil feed pipe, fire valve fitted, oil control valve solenoid, together with the usual regular nozzle replacements. Apart from the igniters, control box and fan assembly there's not much more to the burner side of things. Do they actually spring a leak in the water circuit or something?

I doubt you will ever get it. Piston manufacturers have thier own material grades which they keep close to their chest. They don't put international standard grades on their drawings, just their own internal material codes, so even if you could get a copy of the original piston drawing you would be none the wiser unless you worked for the piston supplier.