weimieman

It was his pillion I felt sorry for

Don't hold me to this but I think you get the first 2500 miles (or 5000 miles) tax free and after that you pay tax on it. You have to keep very strict records as well. Oh, I believe they won't let you on the channel tunnel train like LPG vehicles. LPG might explode (a local metal crusher found that the hard way last year - heard the bang from here) but maybe its the smell of chip fat that keeps them off the train, I dunno

Thats the solution Nev, you've cracked cheap motoring - I need to buy a Chinese Takeaway!!!

Proud to say none of them. This is the closest I come to social networking. I'm the first to admit that I am unsociable though

The reduced mpg is bang on as my Discos used to run about 80% as efficient on gas so 12.5 on gas would be about 15 mph on unleaded. It was such a mine field I think that's I went to diesel. Mind you, a friend of mine uses bio diesel from processed chip fat and buys 400 ltrs at a time and he has just paid 80 per litre for it whereas this time last year he was forking out 60p per litre. Looks like a lot of people are jumping on this bandwagon like LPG and instead if chippys giving you a few quid to take it away, they now charge now to take their waste!!! Go figure. Mind you I've heard some horrific stories about clogged fuel filters etc unless you are using really expensive Bosch ones and changing them every 1K or so. The temptation is still in the back of my mind .... I think I'm just getting more stingy as I get older

Thanks for that, can't get that damned song out of my head now! I've only been on here a few weeks now and I love reading peoples replies but I do look forward to what you come out with next!!! You have, let's say, a unqiue writing style that people appreciate Loved the McDonalds parking ticket by the way. Made me crave a Big Mac

Welcome Sergio and as mentioned your English is very good (far better than some of the members on here!!) At the end of the day, far better than my Argentinian will ever be

Now there's a word you don't often see in a bike forum - "buggery." That'll make me chuckle all day

Yep went down the LPG route myself several years ago. I only do about 5k per year in the car now and 1500 on the bike (DT will be about 250 max) and when I started off on lpg it was 39.9p a litre, I gave up when it turned 72.9p in February this year as I couldn't really justify it anymore for the mileage I did. I only saved £15 a year on road tax registering it as Alternative fuel but I think I spent that on the phone finding out how to do it as neither the main post office or my village post office had a clue. I do miss the big 4x4's and the visability they gave you but I do get a kick out of putting £35 worth of diesel every three weeks even at £1.36 a litre. Don't tell the government that

Always helps, you've just sorted this weekend for me

Being a veteran of these forums now with 30 posts under my belt (heh heh), I thought I'd add my two penneth and give it large as per forum demands. I might be talking out of my backside and if I am please go easy on me when telling me so, but what the hell is going on the road tax for bikes????? As far as I can gather it's all still cc based and looks like it's going to be for the foreseeable. The tax system changed for cars on the 1st March 2001 and you pay as per your CO2 output which seems fair as if you choose to run a gas guzzler, you pay more. Up until four months ago, I ran 4 ltr V8's averaging 12.5 to the gallon but that was my choice and nobody had a gun to my head. To be honest, I was getting fed up of the prices at the pump so rather sensibly (getting too close to 40) I chose a very nice sensible diesel, over 50 mpg and only £125 road tax. Now the whole point of my rant (and obviously wondering what you all think) is that I bought a new tax disc holder for my main bike and being a saddo, I keep all the old discs as I love service history even if its a receipt for a bulb. From when I bought the bike in 2003, the tax has steadily gone up each year to the point where this year's jump is from £66 to £70. My next door neighbour's Focus diesel has gone from £35 to £30??!?!? Surely his vehicle pollutes more than my bike. I could be wrong and that's why I'm wondering what others feel about this. More strangely though is that the DT I have just got is £16 for the year and when I last had one in 1991, it was £12 so that is a nice steady increase. Don't get me wrong, I don't want the DT to go up in line with larger bikes and cars! So besides the pump prices, do you think we're getting it stuck to us with the tax system as well? Maybe I'm just so peeved at the fact I was looking forward to taxing my new car for £125 and it had gone up to £130 the ~@~@@:##s

Cheers Cynic, I never thought about checking for other models. It's common sense now you point it out! Hey ho, I suppose that's what the learning curve is about on here

Morning egg sucker! It was my terminology at fault here not the technique fortunately I only used a wire cup brush but for some reason I have always referred to this as grinding being the weirdo that I am. Like you said, I learnt the hard way about using a proper grinder on a Morris Traveller I restored many years ago. Thinning the metal didn't come into it, I obliterated it. Mind you, I quickly learnt some new welding techniques after it I got some nice laquer from an independant shop at the weekend and the chrome has had a good few layers on there so that should buy me enough time until I buy the new exhaust. However, I'm tempted not to laquer the tank as the gloss shine that has come up on it is pretty darn good for a numpty like me but I'm torn as I want to protect the decals. I might have a look at say Halford's laquer to see if that is more glossy than the stuff I used on the mudguard and exhaust guard. I have noticed a very tiny run on the tank but I'm hoping a bit of 2000 wet and dry should cure that.

Hi Matthew Looks like somebody has had a whinge about the quality and left him bad feedback which seems a little unfair as his advert does clearly state that if you're not happy with the quality simply return them. Just make sure that you pay with a credit card through paypal and you've got every base covered if they do turn out to be stinkers Scott

These are the "forbidden" pictures that were removed for some reason. Was it because I left my number plate in the pic??? Oh well, second time lucky

Keeper, big time! I say that now but if it can't carry my fat ass backwards and forwards to the beach then something may have to give A diet probably. I'm about four stone heavier then when I had a DT previously in 91 and I thought it was slow then. Top end of about 50mph and when I accidentally took a wrong turn onto a motorway slip road, they were the longest five miles of my life, especially with a couple of L plates tucked down my top which I had to rip off on the hard shoulder My sense of direction has not improved since then ....

My Dad was to blame for my addiction. My Mum brought me home from school one day when I was five and my Dad was sat in the living room with a big grin on his face and something was poking out from under a sheet in the lounge. A nice shiny NVT Ranger, putting out 18 horse at the rear wheel! (Yes I was only a child but no I wasn't spoilt before you say!) I remember going to the beach on it at the weekends convinced that the top speed was around 80mph and telling my friends that before they had a go. I've just got a photocopied manual off Flea bay recently and apparently the top speed was 22mph! Trust me at that age it seemed like more. Whilst my Dad always had a road bike, he and his friend always had beach bikes as well for what they used to call "Sammying". (I'm assuming that's reference to the off road rider from the 70's??) There was no better feeling back then than coming home on a Friday night from school and my Dad asking if I wanted to go Sammying tomorrow! The answer was always yes. My Mum and my Dad's friends wife used to do a few circuits of the beach on the back of the bikes whilst me and the other couple's daughters belted around on our bikes at (what I now know to be correct) 22mph. One of my best memories of the beach (the same beach I'll be going on when the DT is completed) was my Dad trying to cockily jump a sand dune and coming down front wheel first and being thrown off. The sight of him scuttling away from the bike before it toppled on him was only beaten by the fact that the bike had buried itself in the sand and stayed upright as he'd landed that hard! An image I'll take to the grave with me! Sadly my Dad has been registered disabled since 1984 and that was the last year he rode comfortably and I'm fairly sure that he would have loved to have tried some of the bikes that have passed through my fingers since turning 16 in 1989. So when I turned 16 I never did get the speech from my parents about bikes being too dangerous and wait for another year to get a car as they knew that it was all their doing! When I was somewhere around 11 ish, the NVT was sold as my Dad thought it was time for me to learn about gears and get away from the twist and go. Again with his friend, they invested £50 on a couple of worn out BSA Banthams and several boxes of bits. A couple of months later me and his daughters both had a working 175cc Bantham! One down and two up, ee by eck, them were the days. The Bantham remained for a couple of years when my Dad wanted me to get a serious Sammy bike. A 1980 Bultaco Sherpa T 250cc. I never did ride that bike. What a bloody stupid idea putting the rear brake on the left and gears on the right! Scared the life out of me trying to work that on the beach. The Bultaco stayed in the garage until 87 and I was bikeless for the first time in 9 years. Then July 89 came and it all started again ......

I think you're 100% right about the drill and re tap. I wasn't going to bother to be honest but now it looks a lot better I think it's going to annoy the hell out of me. I was trying to convince myself that it could stay like that until I got the new exhaust system but I know it's there and it's mocking me

As mentioned in my new member introduction and in my project forum, one of the things wrong on my 86 MK 3 DT was that the left hand gear switch was somewhat, well, lacking in switches. It has the HI LO switch along with the headlight controls but no indicators or horn button. Read my intro if you want to know more about the horn button! I can get a brand new switch for £78.04 but I really am loathed so part with that much for such a small part and after several false promises from so called breakers, I'm having no luck getting one second hand. Now I've been thinking ...... Similar to the situation where fixing my Goldwing starter motor gave me the confidence to tackle a light restoration on this bike, I had a similar epiphany at the weekend when I was fitting an aftermarket tow bar to my car. Being a non genuine Land Rover product, there was no white plug at the end of the loom to plug into the car's loom so I thought surely it was just a case of cutting the plug off the car and sussing out which wire belonged to what by using a circuit tester. Long story short (too late I know. I did warn you when I joined that I bang on a bit)I figured out each of the 7 wires and labelled them up. A little help from my wife poing out the colours to me (again the colour blind thing) and it was sorted so my question is after all this banging on, can a similar thing be done with the left hand switch? I've looked at many on Flea Bay and a lot of them have the same set up with the hi lo, lights, indicators and horn on them but the block is different so is it technically possible to simply pair up the wires with the ones in the loom? Am I thinking a bit too straight forward or has anyone done it or knows that it could be done? I'm not bothered about the looks of the wires not having the original plugs etc as I'm never selling the old girl as my new headlight with the built in indicators will hide the bullet connectors. Like the title says, advice please And a final apology for banging on but you need to have an insight into how my mind works to see why I come up with these things

Well this was at the top of this weekend's job list. Uploaded with ImageShack.us As you can see, it's not really in bad nick considering it's 25 years old but theres certainly some surface rust on there. This one should show it a little better. Uploaded with ImageShack.us After a lot of patient grinding (and careful grinding!), this is the end result after 5 coats of high temperature BBQ paint. The guard had four layers of chrome paint from the pound shop!!! I must admit to anyone who is interested that the black/white/primer from the pound shop is far better then you would think. The only criticism I have with it is that the nozzle is of poor quality and tended to spit rather than spray but by simply swapping the nozzle with a quality one from Halfords and Bob's your mother's brother. Uploaded with ImageShack.us It looks far better on the bike but I obviously forgot to take a picture of that one! That damned snapped off screw in the bottom of the guard is very annoying though. Even my reverse thread drill bit thingy won't get it out. As I'd had a good weekend working on the exhaust I thought I'd have a crack at the tank now that the new decals had arrived. It was this ..... That became this ..... And ended up as this ..... Uploaded with ImageShack.us As you can see, I've gone for the older style decals just to make it a little different and it also helps me out with the side panel decals as my pinstriping and masking idea was a disaster! This weekend coming will be starting the side panel again as it really was a disaster. No really, I'm not exaggerating. Also thinking of tackling some of the wiring as the headlight has arrived and the rear indicators should be here by Friday.

Thanks anyway but the new decals should be fine. Anything will be better than the tatty old things. I really must try resizing those photos like you said becuase mine are tiny compared to your lot. As for snooker, I hear ya. I've potted some corking browns in the past and then lined up for a colour to be told of my misfortune!

Blimey! Your restoration makes mine look like a kid with his Dad's tool box playing grown ups!!!! I can only hope that after you've finished you're going to keep it in the lounge Tell you what though, you've given me hope as I'm going to tackle my exhaust at the weekend. It's the original solid one with a tiny weld patch on but it does have surface rust so if your DEP can look like that, I'm feeling more confident. I've ordered some BBQ/Chiminea paint which supposedly is as good as high temperature paint but half the cost so until I can jusity the new exhaust, tarting up will have to do. One little job I am going to do though is while it's off the bike, I'm going to spray the exhaust guard chrome with a can I got from the £ shop! Might not last long but it'll look good for a few photos. I only wish the bottom screw hadn't snapped off in the exhaust, grrr, damned annoying.

The only thing I'm changing with the tank is the decals. For some reason I can't get hold of the original style ones for love nor money so I've ordered the earlier style ones which will change the look slightly but it will also enable me to trim one of the side panel stickers to go on the rad cover. If I decide to keep the paint scheme on the mudguard (which I probably will now someone has said its good! Colour blindness doesn't do a lot for your confidence when you're painting )I might do a similar thing to the seam of the tank. I tried it with the back corners of the rear mudguard where I repaired and it looked flippin stupid to be honest!!

Ha! They were just four pictures from different angles showing the various damage that I was on about. Why on earth are they forbidden? Maybe something was going on in the background in my own back garden that I didn't notice