Giant slayer

no idea. just looked at the place once. there is a down stairs flat that shares the garden and 2 neighbours either side. I know you have to inform neighbours that you intend to do work on the house but i didnt know you had to get their acceptance. what happened to and englishmans home being his castle......

fair enough for loft conversions but there are houses on the street that have a second bedroom and completely different layout to how they all started. Surely leaseholds aren't that restrictive.

it is a leasehold like 99% of land in london is, obviously you have to go through the formalities of asking permission but i would of thought you could do as you wish. Alot of of flats have had loft conversions so surely that would be considered as building work.

I am looking at buying a flat and unfortunately the bathroom is quite small and one of the things i would like to do is to possibly extend it over the stairs that lead down to the garden.if it was extended straight out to the side there should still be enough head room when going down the stairs to the garden but if not would it be possible to raise the extended section enough as long as there was still enough headroom in the bathroom. i dont really know anything about building structures and i was wondering if anyone on here could give me a brief idea on the work that would be involved. I guess the extension would not be supporting the building as it is an addition is would just have to be enough to hold whatever weight was on top of it (bath, water, people, etc). also the side wall of the bathroom that would have to be knocked through, how can i tell that is a supporting wall. It is a first floor/top floor flat with only a loft space above (although i also want to consider a loft conversion in the future) and it is victorian stone/brick building in a terrace. anyone know about this sort of thing???

was it the one in scotland you used jimmytt? that doesnt look as bad as my alloy that missing a 3-4inch x 2inch chunk and was badly buckled but now is good as new. No horrorshow pictures unfortunately. The lads in scotland claim they can fix any wheel no matter the damage.

no problem although the place vijay recommended looks good too and is alot nearer to you if you wanted to drop them off. I hadnt seen that place before in all my searches. I can speak for scottish place that their work is top notch. There were some delays when i sent mine off but that was due to them being busy which i suppose is a good sign!

there is not many places that fix alloys (although tons of refurb places). The place i found to fix my alloys is in scotland. sounds daunting but is actually not that expensive to send a wheel if you use interparcel.com. these guys can fix anything and offered a discount to club members. Search my posts to try and find the details. Hope this helps.

is that on limited mileage/classics policy? Is it insured in london? seems a great price for an import in london with mods for a 26 year old.

took missus polo when we used it. it was luton and the company were called Airparks.

i used one a couple of months ago and found it great. cant remember if it was stanstead or luton or if it was this particular company. I know it sounds dodgy at first but it worked great and a hell of a lot cheaper than parking in the airport car parks. would use it again.

i thought in the old days this was true but no longer always true with the 'budget' companies now. Would be good to know which are possible and which are not. I am with Bell and would like to know if i am covered for other vehicles with them

lots of debate about this. basically you are safe with 50:50 even if the manual says more because modern antifreezes are more advanced than they were 10 years ago so they will protect from corrosion and freezing temps. You can get a measuring device from halfords for a couple of quid that measures the specific gravity (density) of your coolant to make sure that is enough protection. there is only one fluid that is a better heat transfer medium than water and that is liquid mercury. Not very feasible. So any capacity in your cooling system that is something other than water is reducing the effectiveness. However, it is true adding some substances can aid cooling. Water wetter works like a surfactent (like washing up liquid and the mucas lining of your lungs) and reduces the the surface tension of the water to stops bubbles froming so easily. If bubbles form on the hot parts of your coolant system that you trying to remove heat from it acts like an insulating blanket and the heat transfer efficiency goes down. Alcohols (like glycol) have a thermodynamical relationship with water by mixing in a way that reduces the overall volumes. This means you can have more particles taking away the heat but in a smaller volume (the fixed volume of the coolant system). However the reduction in volume isnt greatly significant and will be maximised only if the stoichmetrically correct not the more is better approach. With this in mind i go for 50:50 with a bottle of Water Wetter thrown in.

50:50 mix. fill rad to the top whilst air release on other side of rad open. keep an eye on coolant level in rad and expansion bottle incase of trapped air. top up rad whilst parked on an incline with engine running to get rid of all trapped air.

just reach in and do everything from the engine back. on second thoughts you might need to jack to get to the radiator drain but i am pretty sure i didnt when i changed mine so you must be able to reach down there when the fan and shroud are removed.

mgh297, I am ready for that free mortgage advise now. Can you email me some contact details tp_ventham@msn.com cheers, Tom

it is really not that tricky. doesnt take long, dont need special tools and dont need to jack up the car.

you can get a new stat from any jap spares or most motor factors. MJP does them too. you could even try nissan if your desperate but it should cost much more than a tenner. Here is a how to: http://www.ttzd.com/tech/60ktech.html obviously you dont need to read all of it but the basics are: - empty rad - remove fan and shroud to make room - remove rad - remove lower rubber rad hose - remove lower hard pipe to block - stat will be there - test stat in pan with thermometer - put everything back and use gasket sealent on all the joints. hope this helps markzx's post about a knackered stat sounds very likely but test using the method he suggests before ripping everything apart.

dont know what would explain that then. is it colder conditions up there? sub zero? Some people might suggest a lazy temp sender to the gauge. I guess you can test that out by getting out of the car after 10 mins while the gauge still on cold and touching the top pipe to see if it is warming up. You can get new sensors from MJP and very easy to change. You may just have a super efficient engine!

the ambient temperatures in the winter will make a difference because colder block to start with and cooling with colder air but 20 mins sounds like a long time! Are you idling for all that period? Mine gets to the mid point in about 5 mins and stat fully opens and rad reaches stable temp afater about 10-15mins depending how long i can stand with out putting the heaters on! That was with an ambient temp of 4°C this morning and below 30mph for first 10 mins.

which part is this showing exactly. I remember on a free mods sticky Topless recommend cable tieing the breather or something so guess this is the same thing but what is what exactly in this picture and what needs cable tieing to what???

cheers duffer i might give that another go. Is there a sweet spot that is thicker than the rest or the best location to put a 3rd party sensor? Have you or anyone else extended the sensor wire that goes from the dash gauge sensor in that top hose so stretch to halfway down the rubber bottom hose? The wire seems to just be a single female blade connector so can a simialr gauge extension wire just be soldered on?

i was thinking about doing this a while ago. Is it deffinitely thick enough????

i tightened the alt belt yesterday as it has been squelling a bit of late. followed the instructions from an Andy Duff post so pretty sure i have done it correctly. tried to start it today after having the stereo on, interior lights, etc and it just gave a squeek and wouldnt do anything. have i done the belt too tight? how do you know how much to adjust it?

do you mean in the rubber hose or the alloy top hose? If it is the alloy part you can replace the the one that send the signal to the dash gauge which is the smaller of the 2. Not sure how big this is but it can be unscrewed easily. The other option is the weld a boss into this pipe and drill and tap a hole for your sender. DTA is your man for this. If you mean in the rubber part you can get adaptors from demon tweeks, etc and drill and tap to size.

top man. helped me out before which was very much appreciated.