Tom's Blog: Rovers, Electronics and Automotive Stuff

Mt Cootha

2008-12-27T11:42:00.002+10:00

Today I headed out early (ish) to take my first run at Mt Cootha in Brisbane. I have been riding a bit since August or so and have really wanted to improve my hill climbing ability.

From what I have read the solution is more hills. So I met Robbie from work (who's last name is strangely enough McEwin - different spelling thank goodness) and we rode from the goodwill bridge out.

I stared off pretty well up past the planetarium but I was really hurting after about 1km or so. I was pedaling out too fast. I need to learn to slow my cadence down when I am struggling. I made a brief stop about 1/3 of the way up and caught my breath, Robbie kept on after short break I started again and made it nearly to the summit before stopping for a few moments once again.

Of course in that time, Robbie had ridden to the top and come back down to get me, followed me to the top shouting words of advice and encouragement.

We made it up there and had a good ride back down in spite of the light rain that made the deck pretty slippery. I was pretty conservative on the ride back down, the rain kept me to just under 60k/hr. After on crash this week I wasn't keen on leaving more flesh on the tarmac.

After we descended I could feel how much I had put into it I was pretty spent, my technique needs a lot of work, I am not particularly suited to climbing but it is a real area I want to improve. We rounded the day out with a ride back to southbank via, UQ, Dutton Park and West End. Good end to a good day.

I guess later this week when I go back for more I need to get up there with 1 stop or no stops then we will start timing it :)

Damn Chains

2008-12-24T15:36:00.005+10:00

How does that saying go ? You want something done right do it yourself ??

I took my pride and joy, my peugeot fixie to have the back cog on her changed over.
The shop swapped it over and fitted a new chain for me. ( I supplied the chain which was brand new) Anyway the new gear ratio was sweet and I was having an excellent ride home.

I had pushed hard on a few smaller hills, was making excellent time and really having a lovely ride home. That was of course until swung around into the steepest bit of the ride and stood up and sprinted flat out as hard as I could.

The next thing I knew I was sliding across the asphalt to a stop the feeling of lycra and skin burning on the hot road and the final insult was my bike hitting me in head and helmet as I came to a stop.

To be honest it didn't really hurt all that much it was more the shock of it that was more the problem. I stood up and had a good look around, saw my bike in a tangled mess on the road (oh the paint work) my beautiful bike, the shiny chrome, the horror !!!

I could see a about 2 or 3m behind my bike was the chain broken and lying on the road. I hobbled across there picked up the bike and my chain. Put them on the footpath in the shade and went to look for the broken link. Eventually I found it hobbled over and sat down and laughed.

It has been so long since I had a proper crash I mean full on eating asphalt.

Anway all is well that ends well - bike is fine not really a mark on it bars were twisted but not bend and the chain is definitely to blame - on closer inspection it looks like it was bent during install and has failed.

Biggest sore spot would probably would be my hand, it appears that my right hand was still on the bars when I hit the road cut up my fingers badly - all the bits that weren't covered by the glove.

Here are some photos from my adventure today :)

Nice round number

2008-09-29T16:52:00.002+10:00

Our merc hit a nice milestone on my drive out to Gatton today. Time for a service I suppose :)

Back in action

2008-09-14T12:12:00.004+10:00

This has been a while coming but ...... the rangie is running on her new (new to me anyway) motor, gearbox and transfer case. It has survived its first decent test when I drove it home from Chucks where she has lived for nearly a year.

It has been a saga that is not over yet but at this point in time, the on screen hero is just winning ... of course you know the plot twist is just around the corner.

It all started when I found a good priced donor motor/gbox/tcase for my car, it was from a 1995 discovery which was originally delivered to Japan, it was imported and wrecked (the best value supply of second hand Rangie and Disco parts pretty much all come into the country like this now, it is cheaper for people to buy them and import for parts as they can't be registered on the road.

I then found a guy with a workshop who was willing to do the work - well he said he was anyway, he pulled all the old gear out and put the new motor together and got it in place, put a rollmaster timing set, new waterpump, re cored and cleaned my radiator and other bits and pieces on the car. Then we hit a big drama, old mate pretty much realised he was over his head and not going to make any money on the job because he was so slow - threw his hands in the air and said come and get it.

Needless to say I wasn't all that impressed, Chuck was very generous and offered part of his garage to my so we could finish the job - when I first saw her I was mortified - it looked like such a massive amount of work and to be honest I thought it was totally beyond me - nothing was done up - the drive train was sitting there without any mounts done up and it was all very gravity assisted.

Chuck encouraged me and said to just start 1 bolt at a time - with help from him and my brother in law Dan, we got a stack done over a few weeks and got it nearly ready to go - I was about 5 or 10 hours short of having it finished before I went overseas. Have spent 3 Saturdays down at Chucks getting the last of it done until finally it roared into life two weekends ago.

Now here is the twist ...
We kinda stuffed up a bit and didn't account for the oil cooler (which was new) and the fact that both of us forgot to connect the idle air bypass hose so when it started it roared up to about 3000rpm for about 10 seconds before we killed it because of a lack of oil pressure. From there we starting pumping oil into every available cooler line and hole and then tried again, another 10 seconds of roaring and still nothing. We put the delkor (battery) on the big charger and then cranked the car over with the fuel turned off) until the pressure came up and slowly realised we were missing the hose to stop the high rpm, fitted that and then she came on nice and smooth .... until about a minute later when we heard the familiar singer sewing machine sound of tack, tack, tack, tack ....... busted lifter.

At this stage it seems to come and go but it is definitely there - I have delvac in there now and have to flush it with RX super which might solve the problem but now it seems that I might have to strip the motor back down and put a set of lifters in there .... not happy.

That aside we warmed her up last night after finishing some wiring and I had enough confidence and instrumentation to drive home .... well sort of ... no turn signals, brake lights or speedo (short in that circuit) - have to chase that down next weekend but now it is in the driveway I washed her today and got a year of workshop grim off her .... here is the list of things to do yet.

1. Stop lights, indicators, speedo (should be a short)
2. New top and bottom rad hose (purchased but need installing)
3. New radius arm bushes (the ones in it are sooo stuffed)
4. Fabricate a centre console completely (the laminated cardboard original is gawn)
5. put the 3 plugs that are not connected onto the gearbox (should fix reverse light problem)
6. Wire up a Diff lock light - never had one of those in this car :)
7. Acquire LT230 H/L knob
8. Fix aircon - new pipes for new compressor, new R/D and vac, regas (trip to Haultech)
9. Fix air intake - missing O rings and need to fabricate bracket
10. Fix dipstick and dipstick tube - must have copped a flogging when they put the motor in.
11. Fix Aux electric fans - seem to be not activating - hoping it is an earth
12. Drop the oil 2 or 3 times and hopefully solve the lifter problem (fingers crossed)
13. Drop the coolant a few times and clean the inline filter - need to do a few kms before that)
14. Drop the gbox and tcase oil twice - goodness knows how old that is
15. Bleed the brakes - fluid is cactus
16. Install new rotors for the front and pads
17. Repack front bearings, change the oil seals, drop the hub oil.

That is all I can think of just off the top of my head, it is a long road but well worth it - am keen to have it back in service - they are an awesome car, just so versatile and it will be good to have two cars running just make life a bit easier from time to time.

So, I am very happy, I know most of the jobs on the list are pretty simple, most I have done before and most are electrical (surprised ? I thought not).

Old school works of art

2008-08-21T20:09:00.009+10:00

I have been playing with my camera and having a read on the interweb about manual focus lenses on new EOS digital cameras - like my 40D. Naturally you would think that the older canon lenses (which I have a boat load of) would be weapons of choice and you would be wrong!

According to those in the know canon, whether accidentally or on purpose made the EF "register distance" (lens mounting distance) and the diameter of the lens such that you can buy a simple $8 - $30 lens adapter and mount nearly any old school manual focus lens on them with ease. All EXCEPT the canon FD lenses.

Naturally there are forums (isn't there always) on which lenses are the best, why and how, how much they should/do cost. From there I have been slowly learning which ones to look out for on ePay.

So far I managed to score a Helios-44-2 58mm f2 (russian made carl zeiss copy) for $1 plus $20 shipping from the US and a mamiya 50mm f2. for $30 with $5 shipping in Brisbane.

I only got my adapters today so I have been annoying Susan and our fish with them tonight.
They only really work in AV mode on the camera so you just manually select the aperture you are after and then the camera works out the rest. They produce a very different feeling photo and I am really impressed with the sharpness and the bokeh (meaning background blur).

One of the most desirable Japanese made lens is the Minolta rokkor 58mm f1.2 - just looking at this beast is stunning - pity about the "modification process" required to make it fit - it involves disassembly and grinding the casing of the lens down until it focuses to infinity - I am brave, but not that brave ..... yet.

I am having a lot of fun with my $60 invested so far - I think it will do me for now, although I have got my eye out for a nice 300mm prime lens, the pop up now and again for less than $50 :)

I put the photo of Suse I took at the top and this is jman13's (from the POTN forums ) collection of desirable manual lenses.

I'd better blog

2008-07-15T13:03:00.002+10:00

Well I have now been sick for a week with diverticulitis and I am over it - I am home today nearly better and pretty bored, so the best thing to do I figure is to write about a few things that are going through my head.

Holiday - had an awesome time, really loved it still haven't sorted all the photos but that is coming soon no doubt - I want to have some nice ones printed. The 40d went brilliantly thanks to Suse again for the Birthday present I have got so much pleasure out of it and it has been a lot of fun taking photos overseas with you.

Further to that the eeePC that we bought for the trip was a great companion it really added to our abilities while we were gone, it was secure, fast and reliable.

Just about everywhere we had it out in a public place someone would come over and ask questions about its performance/cost/size and if I would buy one again (absolutely)

Most of the places went had Wifi (free or pay as you go) that kept us in touch and able to keep an eye on banking while we were gone. The ultimate luxury was being able to order fresh groceries in the British Airways lounge at Terminal 5 to be delivered at our house the morning we arrived without having to line up with all the other backpackers outside at the internet cafe. (Well actually the BA lounge has complimentary PCs with free net but you get the idea)

The fish,
Damien our housesitter did an amazing job and all our discus and their mates are present and accounted for - the only problem he had was a failed timer and he used the spare I provided to replace it. That really made all the preparation, rewiring, filtration addition and construction as well as the hours of cleaning and labeling and food preparation worth it.

You can't just go from having no fish to looking after a 700L + aquarium full of discus without some mishaps but Damien managed it well done mate !

Back to it for now

Tom

5" sump for discus tank

2008-05-07T12:02:00.005+10:00

No blogging for so long - bad Tom :)

Here is my latest project - a 5" filter sump for my discus tank - could nearly be too big - there, I said it.

I guess the question is how big is too big ? :D

I had wanted to make a big sump for my discus tank and I was working out the cheapest way to do it.

I was looking at having mate tig up some ali and make a big container with some baffles - I scrapped that on price was going to be way too expensive.

Looked at making it out of acrylic - again was expensive, honestly it is probably the best option give the weight. Basically I was too cheap and lazy to learn how to work with acrylic.

I found a 5" fish tank on ebay that was local - they were a bit rough but not too bad - was certainly adequate for a sump (well so I thought - more about this later)

I purchased some glass baffles cut to size and sectioned it off into 3 main compartments of media and one pump return compartment. The baffles were cheap $10 each.

I glued up the baffles with the help of clamps and spacers (cd cases etc, masking tape and some timber I had). I also pulled the corners off the tank which were inadequate and glued some new ones on (except 1 - more about this later :x ) I leak tested everything and it was all good, final wash down and she was done.

I attached a piece of 20mm form ply to the stand underneath the tank after I had upgraded some of its supports - glued and screwed some studs to the metal stand for some additional strength.

I slid the new sump full of media underneath and it only just fitted - I had not measured the tank I got but it was slightly larger than I was told which has made it a very tight fit - I only have about 10cm above the sump which is really not enough my arm has trouble getting in and I can't touch the bottom of the sump. Also I haven't got quite enough space for the existing lights - will have to change them out for some slimline units - not to worry.

My two main media baskets are about 50cmx45cmx40cm high and the initial basket it about 20cmx45cmx50cm. I used most of the old media that I kept water circulating over while I did the change over.

The dramas

1. the tank has a leak in the end compartment since moving it - the silicon job on that corner was poor and I hope my sealing of it has fixed it - otherwise I will have to drain and remove it. As a result I have the return pump jammed into the end media area with all the bio balls.

2. I haven't got foam under it to allow it to flex - I need to fix that.

3. Space is very tight - I am going to have to make a trolley and a very thin board to sit it on with a handle system on the end so I can part the trolley up at the end and pull the sump out onto it for cleaning and service - if I had got the height a better organised I would have avoided that.

Things to do yet.

1. Return pumps and circulation pump - on my old sump I had a very small fountain pump (from bunnings) to keep the water recirculating around itself at all times - it would sit next the the return pump and pump the water back to the top of the sump - need to set the same thing up here.

2. Power heads in each section - help the water fullly circulate in each section - need 2 little power heads

3. Hose clamps need to put hose clamps on very connector due the the problem of having to drain it for removal - need to misimise the number of times I am going to move this out for "service"

4. Lights - going to install some slim line fluros under the main tank to light the sump - keep the pests away and makes a nice feature of it.

5. Reinstall 2x heaters and my water low relay cut off in the sump.

6. Make the trolley, sump handle remover thingy and get the foam under the sump tank.

Thanks Cam and Ness

2007-07-12T21:55:00.000+10:00

Well as my wife's blog indicated I had my first real squash injury in 4 or 5 years last night. I got hit just on the edge of my eye and eye socket by a poorly hit ball from my opponent.

It hit me hard but I was lucky enough to see it coming and nearly managed to get out of the way.However a trip to the hospital was the order of the evening and Dr Costello gave me the all clear.

After seeing the gallery of horrors on the IMASK website I got off easy. I stayed at home today and applied ice and most of the swelling is gone. To my surprise a delivery of chocolates and cookies arrive courtesy of Cam and Ness which put a big smile on my face. It was so unexpected and so lovely and it really cheered me up.

So thanks again guys it was lovely and you are too kind.

Tom

Big weekend out on the deck :)

2007-01-21T19:19:00.000+10:00

I have added some photos from yesterday morning for some progress shots. Continuing on with our deck work, John arrived right on time today and we kicked off at about 8.30am - it was hot already which was not a good sign but we kept working at it. I decided to cover the exposed joists in heavy black plastic and used pryda shade cloth clips to hold them in place. I have seen a lot of commercial solutions to this where people have also used formed ali over the joists, I figured it my cheap solution would be a good start. We then finished nailing all the triple grips up and some knuckle plates to fix up all the structural elements which went well. Then came the task of laying out the floor and making the cuts. It took me a fair while to get into a rhythm and to stay ahead of John who was drilling and nailing. Sadly we ran out of long lengths of decking to finish the job, we are probably 6 x 3500mm length short which I shall order tomorrow. We still have to go through and nail every board onto every joist, at the moment they are just on at each end of the board and the joins.

Big Day

2007-01-19T23:08:00.000+10:00

Had a big day today it was the 3rd last day of my holidays and I really needed have something to show for it. We have been planning to extend our deck over the last few weeks and I got word that the timber supplier would be ready to deliver today. I had John my father in law and brother in law Andrew lined up for tomorrow morning so I needed to have all the ground work done we can get the bearers and jousts set tomorrow and hopefully start putting some decking down.

I ordered recycled hardwood joists and bearers and recycled/remilled hardwood for the top I ended up ordering about 150 lineal metres of decking so hopefully I can pull up most of the rotted timber and replace it.

So the morning saw me heading to bunnings and buying the rest of the stuff for the foundations, pryda stirrups, concrete, bolts, triple grips, - I have yet to get some weather stripping for joists, deck nails and drill bits. That was a tough trip in itself, I had to find the stirrups because the staff said they were out of stock - apparently this means "in a box up a bit higher"

Home, finished digging holes, concreted and leveled the stirrups which are hopefully all good, then the timber arrived - oh dear no crane truck, unloaded by hand.

I started ferrying up the joists to the back yard, got 6 of 11 done when I noticed they were the wrong sized, I needed 5x2" and they send 6x2" - totally wrong and would make the job a lot harder. Back on the phone, organise the stuff to be swapped over, ferry all the timber back down the front. Truck arrives again - still no crane truck, unload by hand again and ferry to the back. Thank heavens Suse was there to help me, nearly killed me in the end I was so tired.

So we got the joists and bearers shifted and all 150Lin M of decking up to the back for tomorrow !!

I then finally finished a job I had wanted to do for ages, build a mitre saw bench for my Metabo SCMS (sliding compound mitre saw). It took me about 2.5 hours to knock up a winged bench out of an old nappy change table and some salvaged office bench tops. Still needs a bit of work, maybe a sand and coat of paint but it will do the job for squaring all the decking and cutting them to length.

Tomorrow should be great - hopefully I will have some good progress shots.

New Plants for Tank

2006-11-02T12:36:00.000+10:00

I stumbled a fellow planted fish tank enthusiast in Brisbane via the Discus Forums who was having a bit of a clean out of his tanks.
For a small mount of cash he provided me with new plants for my tank ....

The first is

Hemianthus micranthemoides or Pearl Grass and is described as "a versatile plant that's highly recommended for virtually any planted tank with sufficient lighting. It's an ideal background plant in smaller tanks where the small leaves help create an illusion of greater tank size, and it's also a great selection for foreground highlights, filler, and contrast in larger tanks. Under brighter light the plant is encouraged to send off horizontal creepers with numerous side shoots that develop at the internodes. In time, a beautiful, thick, bushy cushion of green is created. Under less light or shaded areas, the stems tend to grow more upright with fewer side shoots. Pearl grass also responds extremely well to trimming, soon forming new shoots near the end of the cut stem"

The second is

Blyxa japonica and is described as "Prefers soft acidic water, bright light with a nutrient rich substrate, a finer grain is better. Slow growing and fragile. Propagation by side shoots"

They look great and I am very happy with the acquisitions.

LPG Trap for young players

2006-11-02T11:55:00.000+10:00

I finally got to fixing another year old annoying problem with the green car.. The LPG tank - I had it re-certified last year and since then it has only ever taken 34L out of 65L creating a small "range" problem for the car. About 9 months ago I bought a replacement fill limiting valve at a cost of $90 + gst which has sat on my desk until now.

I took the old one out - it took about 20 mins for the last of the LPG to bleed out of the tank and then discovered that is was all bent and broken - that would be the problem. I then placed the new valve in and turned it gently only to find it caught on something else.

I discovered that the gauge float seemed to be in the way - easy fixed, pulled that assembly apart and found that the float on it was about the size of a golf ball - no wonder it was getting in the way. When old mate removed my valve and refitted it he must have forgotten about it and then just threaded it back in anyway - it would have caught on the gauge float and bent itself thus limiting the amount of LPG that would go in.

Installed the new one - then installed the gauge - put her all back together and went to the servo to fill. 67L of LPG - magic :)

The death of the Lazy Lock

2006-10-29T23:55:00.000+10:00

Those of you who have ever had the pleasure (??!!) :) of being driven around in the green rangie will be familiar with the Lazy Lock situation - for those who haven't - the passenger rear door won't unlock on its own or stay unlocked once you flick the latch up and so the phrase was coined (by Susan or Vanessa - not sure who) the Lazy Lock.

I am pretty sure it has been a problem for about a year or so but today I became motivated and purchased a central locking kit for $42 and then removed the old locking motor and replaced it with a new unit, aligned and tested (bit of cursing and modifying) and behold - no more lazy lock.

While motivated I moved on to the front passenger door that was causing other central locking problems - the central locking would not work from the key fob as there was too much drag on the mechanism created by the front passenger door lock. This meant you had to key lock it - the additional pressure on the mechanism by someone turning the key (in either passenger or driver's door) was enough to keep it locked.

I managed to fix that by stripping down the existing motor and cleaning and lubricating it and then fixing some alignment issues. The result - key fob now works.

There was one down side however, after putting the door skin back on I noticed that when you lock the door now only the passenger side indicators flash - very strange, must have done something wrong, knicked a wire or something - I will put up with it for now but when I have to take that door skin off again to wire up the puddle lights I will try and fix it.

Feels a bit like 3 steps forward and 1 back.....

Oh well :)

Dosing for the planted tank

2006-10-23T14:24:00.000+10:00

What you need:

Yates Cheated Iron
Yates Trace Elements
Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom Salt) MgSO4
Potassium Sulfate K2SO4
Potassium Nitrate KNO3
Distilled Water H20

How to Mix

250Ml H20
6 Tea Spoons K2SO4
2 Tea Spoons KNO3
4 Tea Spoons MgSO4
1 Tea Spoon Trace Elements
1 Tea Spoon Cheated Iron.

I don't use PMDD but have read many people that do with great success. A lot cheaper than using commercial products.

http://www.aquaticgardensaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15 (hope it works).

They seemed to add it to boiling water, I guess so most of the product dissolves. I read somewhere else who uses a similar makeup that he adds 15ml of product daily to his 6x2x2

Finally Done it ....

2006-09-04T09:55:00.000+10:00

I finally fixed the interior light in the Rangie, it hasn't worked for probably 2 years - I worked through the problem and found the delay timer was to blame - it is a $130 relay. I wasn't really all that interested in buying one of those so instead I rewired the circuit from scratch - new lines to each door sensor, new lines to the lights, new lead in and hey presto we are working.

All that is left to do is to ...

1. Wire the puddle lights in the doors back in (bling bling lights)
2. Wire in the new delay unit I bought from Jaycar - $18 - bit better than $130
3. Wire in the over-ride switch on the dash (easy - just another earth point)

Onward to the repair of the "lazy lock" !!!

This is what it is all about

2006-08-20T22:45:00.000+10:00

Is this just a guy thing or does everyone agree this is a fantastic looking amp ?

Weekend wrap up

2006-08-20T21:50:00.000+10:00

Had a nice productive weekend - just the type I like.

I managed to get friday off and started work to removed the last of the wall we took out between our lounge and kitchen - we were going to leave the existing cornicing in and just make a "bulkhead" by framing up the existing end studs and ceiling - but on closer inspection the framing on the cornicing was dodgy and there would have been a lot of complex cuts - a lot of bizare shapes required to square it all up.

Translation - all too hard, quick trip into the roof to re-evalute the total frame removal - as far as my engineering and carpenter consults both agreed that the there was a slight possability that there was a minor load on it. I fabbed up some brackets and cut some hardwood and re-distributed the load elsewhere. The longest part of that was waiting for the paint to dry on the brackets.

So that is done - I pulled down most of the excess framing and plasterboard and it should come up well, I manged to find a supplier of our original cornice - which is great and it was only $9.19 a metre - bargain.

I have also started a bit of an insulation project for the ceiling I have had on the brain for about a year. I stumbled across a roll of sarking - reflective insulation used in the walls of a modern house - it was cheap $40 for 45m2. I wanted to run along the roof trusses behind the roof tiles on the western side of the house. I want to cut down some of the radient heat from the roof tiles- we already have polyester batts on top of the ceiling I just want to minimise heat soak - to use an automotive term.

Pretty easy so far - I have about 4m2 done and it seems easy enough - just need to pick up some more roof battern sized timber to sandwich the foil onto the roof trusses. One other thing - it would be really clever if I took a nice bit of form ply to slide around on up there - save me sitting on timber beams the whole time - might be worth running something through the table saw :)

Saturday done, we had helped out my brother-in-law's Birthday lunch - cooking on the bbq and serving which was great, had a good relax in the afternoon after the guests have left the bbq. Headed home, managed to say motivated to change the front shocks in the rangie.

Anyone who knows about the front shocks knows it is a bit of a pita of a job, just fiddly - had the drivers side done in 20 mins - the other side was a whole different story, one of the tower bolts had broken the weld on the ring as a result I couldn't undo it the easy way, ended up having to take the shock out via the old way of "articulating" the spring out of the car with flex.

took the front wheels off, lowered it as low as it would go on jack stands then lifted one side of the body with the high lift until the spring would come out. This is ususally easier with spring compressors - but mine seem to be missing - anway ended up getting the old shock out inbetween the axle housing and the rear steering linkage, and the reverse of the process to put it all back together. Job time - 2hrs total.

Finally I got around to putting and oil catch can on the crank case breather to catch some of the blowby before I vented it out to the atomosphere (a touch anti-social but a necessary evil when running LPG - a story for another time). That catch can should filter out the oil before it annoys fellow commuters. The catch can was very rough but effective - see how much oil it catchs. Got the details from here http://www.cadillacfaq.com/faq/answers/oilcatch/index.html
and I had the parts "in stock" - just need to make me a fancy bracket as opposed to zip ties.

That is all for now :)

Baby has new shoes!!

2006-08-11T14:53:00.000+10:00

Well the time had finally come - 3 years and 75,000Km later - time for some new shoes for the rangie. The MTRs I had on the car were nothing short of fantastic, 2 punctures in 75,000Km - one was a write-off - hole the size of your thumb where the tread meets the sidewall and the second was a roofing screw that didn't even let the air out - I just heard the clicking of his metal head being ground down by the road .... in short 5 stars.

I bought a replacement set today for less than I paid in 2003 - not much less but the four tyres set me back a grand .... Hopefully they will give me a few years of motoring - @ 3 years that is $333 a year - pretty cheap really.

Another nice suprise is the tyre noise is gone, the old tyres had quite a roar to them due to the worn lugs but I could nearly sneak up on people now !!!

Turner 4, 1/2 Plane

2006-08-09T21:18:00.000+10:00

Here is the Turner 4 1/2 Plane

Why don't I own you yet ?

2006-08-03T10:33:00.000+10:00

I *need* one of these - I mean how long have I wasted digging trenches and holes for posts ??

Our house will eventually need restumping and the fence on one side is shagged - I count at least 30 holes in those jobs alone - at that rate it is $15 a hole ... bargain .....

[Click Here for larger image]

EDIS - Cont'd

2006-07-11T20:13:00.000+10:00

What bits do you need? (example pictures)

3) 36-1 trigger disc

4) VR sensor

More bits I need minus the actual module

EDIS Ignition Control - One Day

2006-07-11T19:46:00.000+10:00

Hopefully I will get this little project off the ground one day......

I want to get rid of my Lucas Ignition/ECU system in my range rover ... Megasquirt is the way of the future and I am keen on importing one - I have an EDIS 8 already thanks to a group buy imported from the US from http://www.outerlimits4x4.com organised by Popeye - then ended up being cheap cheap.

This way I can get rid of distributor totally - kinda cool - freak people out when they look under the bonnet.

Now I need a VR sensor and a 36-1 tooth crank wheel off a Falcon - things to scavange next time I am at the wreckers

It is ongoing but I thought I would post this up so I can store it here http://www.megamanual.com/ms2/EDIS.htm

8 cylinder (EDIS8):
- On an eight cylinder engine, the coils fire ABCD (actually ABCDABCDABCD...). So coil A is connected to cylinder #1 and its complimentary cylinder, coil B is connected to the cylinder that fires after cylinder #1 (& its compliment), coil C connects to the next cylinder (...), and coil D connects to the next cylinder, and it's compliment. That's all of them.
- On EDIS8, there are two coil packages, with two coil in each package. Coil A is connected to pin 8 of the EDIS module, coil B is connected to pin 9 of the EDIS module. Coil C is connected to pin 11 of the EDIS module, coil D is connected to pin 12 of the EDIS module. You will need this info to figure out which coil pack is A/B and which is C/D. Coils A and C are on the right side of their respective coil packs, with the connector at the bottom, B and D are on the left.
- For example, if your V8 firing order is 18436572 (Chevy V8), then 1&6 should be connected to coil A, 8&5 to coil B, 4&7 to coil C, and 3&2 to coil D. Again, it doesn't matter which of the complimentary cylinders is connected to which of the terminal on the same coil.
Cylinders may be numbered in different ways, depending on the manufacturer. Inline four cylinders are generally 1234 from 'front' to 'back', with the front being the opposite end from the transmission. Vee and flat engines might be numbered with even numbers in one bank and odd on the other, or they might be numbered down one bank then the other. ALWAYS check in a service manual to be sure.
Given the number of potential problems (firing order, cylinder numbering, module to coil wiring), the best advice is from James http://megasquirt.sourceforge.net/extra/edis-hardware.html, "One method is to test on the starter (plugs out.) First mark your crank pulley with where each plug should fire and then strobe each coil tower in turn as you crank the engine to see which one fires. e.g. I was installing MSnEDIS onto a small block Chevy which has 18436572 firing order, so I marked 1 at TDC, 8 at 90 ATDC i.e. a quarter turn anti-clockwise, then 4 at 180 ATDC, then 3 at 270 ATDC. You can just chalk the numbers on roughly. When you have worked out which plug is which connect up the wiring and off you go. Remember that the coil fires a pair of towers, so in my example 1&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;6, 8&5, 4&7, 3&2 are the pairs."

Settings/MegaTune

In MegaTune, set:

Trigger offset = 10° (this will vary, depending on the wheel/pickup configuration),
Ignition Input Capture to 'Falling Edge',
Cranking Trigger to 'Trigger Return',
Coil Charging Scheme to 'EDIS',
Spark Output to 'Going High (Inverted)'

Tom

Discus and Hex - this is killing me

2006-06-27T18:50:00.000+10:00

Today my largest (180mm discus 6 years old) is showing signs of hex - dark, in the top corner not eating - if he dies I will be shattered. Desperate times call for desperate measures - I have moved my 5 remaining discus incuding my oldest and dearest into my 70L hospital tank. I am doing 500mg/ 40L metro + G-1000's metro medicated food and waterchanges every 8 or so hours. They have two sponge filters going in there and it is a cycled tank amonia 0, nitrite 0, ph 7.0 I only had enough metro for another two days on the 125g tank - this way I have days upon days of supply at 500mg.I hope they will they be alright all in there with 2-3 daily water changes ? I am worried about them

I have had discus for 6 or so years and never had hex - makes me sad and disapointed - I feel like I have let my fish down

Tom

My Discus

2006-06-15T19:42:00.000+10:00

My Discus tank is one of my favorite things, I love the relaxing nature my 6"x2"x2" tank it gives me something to relax around and look at. I have been slowly building it - we have spent a bit of her - filters lights and plants and of course the discus.

I had a large discus around 200mm that I had for years and I bought 11 very young discus around January and have been raising them since. They have been going well until about 1 month ago when they were are bit off colour. I have been working ever since to cure them - I intially thought they had gill fukes which I treated them for - no better, then from the info I had I treated them for tapeworm but still no luck - I have lost 5 so far. Today after finding a fantastic article here http://ukdiscus.co.uk/spironucleus.htm I belive they have Hex.

I went on a quest to find some Flagyl or Metro - Schedule2 drug and can only be dispensed by a vet. Well it took a while and cost a bit but I finally obtained enough for 3 treatments - just on 60 tablets - and cost including consultation about $1 each.

The Vets at Mitchelton were great - listened and saw the research I had done and happily dispensed the medication for me - Tamara said should would call in a few days to see how they were going, her attitude was refreshing and lovely - Hopefully they will be on the mend from tonight - fingers crossed !

It has been a while

2006-06-07T09:17:00.000+10:00

Well,

It has been a while since I updated this - we have been very busy around the place and have managed to get quite a bit done.

Susan went to Scotland for a month and I missed her but while she was away I managed to get the floors in the bedroom and the hallway sanded and polished. It was good to get it done while she was gone - save her hayfever a battering.

We are also moving forward nicely on our backyard renovation - we have capped nearly all of the retaining walls we build with the heathstone caps - just need to make some cuts on a few stones and we will be done, now we are just about at the "final level" stage which is great. I think I will hire a rotary hoe to dig up the yard and make setting the level easier - have to get that organised for the long weekend.

Lastly we decided on how wide to make the driveway and we bought a post to replace the one that was too narrow, dug the hole (bugger of a job thanks the old tree that was once there) and concreted it in - ran out of concrete mix so it is half concreted in - will have to pick up another bag or two of mix tonight.

I am a bit worried about pouring an extension on the driveway - I have never attempted anything like it before - I have done footings and posts before - I guess I would just need to get some extra gear - and lay it all out - 6" slab with reo should be ok for the car to sit on - if figure I will do it in two sections the same as the existing driveway and then once it is all done I think I will paint it all the same colour to save it look too half assed. The guys on pirate4x4.com seem to have a tried nearly every concrete paint known to man so I will do some research on which is the best value and go for that.

Tom

Landscaping - the back yard

2006-02-01T09:15:00.000+10:00

As I have mentioned here we are undertaking a landscaping project on our backyard. Now easter last year I decided that we had enough of our over planted over grown, weed and spider infested back yard. So I did what everyone does right? Order three 10 cubic metre skips and hired a dingo loader and ripped it all apart. Now that wouldn't have been so bad except that we didn't really know what we wanted to do with the newly demolished aread.

Nearly a year later (how embarassing) my father-in-law and I came up with a design after surveying the area and working out the levels. Our small block is 19.5m in width and it is around 8m from the finish our our deck to the back fence. We decided on a small cut and level job to make the backyard flat, as well as three retaining walls - one big, two fairly small.

Now at this point it was a cracker of an idea - it was only when the 9 pallets of blocks and materials arrived on my driveway and in my front yard that it occurred to me that there was a fair bit of work in this little project :)

Anyway we used Boral heathstone retaining wall system for the main wall across the 19m span of our back yard - here is the blurb from them -
"Building a Heathstone® wall involves a dry stacking mortarless system. Walls up to a metre high, 90 degree corners and curves can be created – and a free d.i.y guide is available, showing simple steps to follow."

Now that sounds like a piece of cake doesn't it ! well they neglect to mention in that little blurb that the buggers are 25Kg each and when you order 250 of them and have to move them by hand to the backyard - it could take a while and you may be sick at the sight of them.

But it has been worth it - the heathstone is fairly well finished we just have to cap them and we are still working away on our other little walls. It is going to look fantastic and hopefully not cost a boat load - we are on budget at the moment.

New Gloves

2006-02-01T08:51:00.000+10:00

I finally made it across to Bunnings for a "shop like a woman" experience in spending my birthday vouchers. Now you need to understand - I have a love/hate relationship with Bunnings and it goes like this

1. I hate Bunnings because they have swallowed up all the hardware stores and have a massive monopoly and can and do charge whatever they feel like.

2. I love Bunnings because they have a heap of stuff and some of it is quite good.

Normally when I go to that shop it is for a strictly "shop like a man" trip. I head there with a short list of exactly what I need and go in for that and that alone. (Well that isn't quite true, every trip starts with a quick look at the tool shop). Anyway when faced with choice on buying something I don't immediately need I find it very difficult to buy things. I end up just wondering around and say - that would be nice and then putting it back.

fortunately my wife came with me last night and showed me how to browse and shop :) it wasn't too bad and in the end I decided to purchase a set of these
Gloves
Now these suckers run at $48 each and they are awesome - something you would never buy with you own money. I will give them a workout on the weekend as our landscaping efforts continue.

Annoyance dot COM !

2005-12-13T14:05:00.000+10:00

Well the morning got off to a good start, slept in till 7.30am - oh dear we are going to be very late, dropped the wife off to work continued on my merry way parked at my work, went to turn the key off in the ignition and 'snap' key in one hand car still running.

Damn it ! managed to get the car stopped and around half the key is still jammed in there. Not good. Came into work swearing and cursing sat down and thought about it a bit - headed back to the car park and managed to disassemble the whole steering lock/ignition block assembly in about 10 minutes - pretty happy with that althought I would make a lousy car thief!

At lunch I took the jammed ignition lock into a locksmith who took one look at it and said ... "for a Rover isn't it" - yep spot on .... "yeah that is pretty common, ready tomorrow morning $16.50 thanks" - bargain !

Hopefully the screwdriver start rangie will be back to normal tomorrow arvo :)

No rest for the Wicked

2005-12-13T13:29:00.000+10:00

Well Christmas is rapidly arriving and the list of jobs I wrote out in October doesn't have many things crossed out :(

We have had a terrible month of breakages, lost a dishwaher, DVD player,
dryer and the LPG tank out of the Rangie.

So much for things in 3s! We pick up a new dishy which I am very happy with http://www.boschappliances.com.au/content.asp?document_id=130 cost us a fair bit but the cheaper ones were just ... well ... Crap! There were several models from the same manufacturer which all had broken door catches, most of them flexed up when you twisted them(the Col Campbell test for those who know my family) like they made from alfoil and then there were the baskets which some of which look like they were made from pipe cleaners. We ended up with an older stock model brand new in the box, the best thing about it was that they had it here and I took it home straight away.

I have a fair few 'must do' jobs before Christmas which is fast approaching.

1. Shade sails - we bought some new shade sails from Kmart Garden the other weekend >http://www.coolaroo.com/html/proDetails.asp?ProdCode=301491 they look great and were on sale for $60 each - that is less than half retail, we snapped up two and want to replace the ancient sail which now is very ugly over the back deck. Of course this is a major job requiring new post and new mounts made so I can hang it off the roof. Our existing sail is hanging there by the grace of God and if we managed to have a major storm I beleive it and a portion of my roof would depart. I have an engineer mate looking at bracket designs I have drawn up but needless to say - there is a long way to go on this one, I need to order 2 large poles and concrete them in yet and cut down an ugly palm tree that is in the way and move our TV aerial - farout !

2. Plastering - I want to get the plastering done that is a result of the wall removal project we embarked on a few months ago I have to prep it and get a mate in to finish it off

3. Security Bars - I want to make a set that reflects more on my welding skill rather than the one I threw together when we moved it - the current one in the living room looks crap and everytime I sit at the tabe it annoys me.

That should keep me busy I will post some pics of the sails and mouting epic soon !!

Slacker

2005-08-08T20:11:00.000+10:00

So I have been a little slack, I have a lot to say, stay tuned I will be posting a boat load here

Tom

Webshots community

2005-02-21T15:21:00.000+10:00

This is here so I can remember this link for these photos

http://community.webshots.com/topics/75/100275_node.htm

Renovating

2005-02-21T15:11:00.000+10:00

Have been very busy lately :) we have started a bit of renovation on our place.

I pulled all the lino out off the floor in a fit of disgust and decided that we need to polish the floorboards. Well I used my belt sander and worked away solidly for 5 or so hours and had the floor nice smooth. I then hired and edge sander to finish all the other bits.

We used Cabbots CTP to finish the floor which is cpyress pine and are happy with the results. We plan to do the whole house but it will be a bit at a time project.

Tom

Dunga Vision

2004-12-06T13:12:00.000+10:00

It Lives !

I have had Chuck's DungaVision computer on my desk for some time but had not had a lot of time to look at it but last night I finally got motivated and rebuilt it on a new mainboard and gave it a clean install of Windows 2000.

To explain what this is more clearly, it is an in-car entertainment system for a friends rangie (hence the term dunga, a name we give to older range rovers models 1970 - 1993 are referred to as "Dungas") This system is a Pentium III 500MHz system with 512Mb Ram and an 80GB hard disk, it is running off an inverter and has a 7" LCD screen for output mounted up in the car. It decodes MP3s for in-car entertainment, it can also play film clips, DivX and DVDs when not moving.

It has been languising in my study for about 3 months while I have been trying to get new mainboards to suit its custom made case. I fortunately stumbled onto a great compact little mainboard, all in one with two spare PCI slots for TV tuner and TV out cards for $35. This was picked up from the sunday computer markets in Brisbane which are a wealth of new and used computer hardware, most of it is slightly older which suits me just fine, when you can build a system from odds and ends.

All this has motivated me to try and get my system for the car up and running again, I used to have a similar system which was great for music etc, this time I might try and build it on a laptop in a docking station so I can get av out, charging and have it all mounted up in minimal space, just a thought, I really need to get my dual batteries and inverter back into my rangie and onboard air, new transfer case, bigger LPG tank...... Why doesn't this list seem to ever get smaller ???

Woodpecker 2004

2004-12-01T09:24:00.000+10:00

Last weekend there was a little 4x4 event know as Woodpecker - actually it is huge there were hunderds of cars there and a huge crowd. Woodpecker is a NSW comp that is a team event.

Several Qlders made the 7+ hour drive down there to compete towing their rock buggies and big krawling rigs down there with them. Some of these cars are absolute weapons - the one that springs to mind is Sam Overton's MogRover. Sam is engineer and a very keen rock crawler he has travelled to the states and competed in the Calrocs (Californian Rock Crawling), he has developed this rig so he can "Drive IT" flat out and not break anything.

This "thing" is construted from a uni mog (Army Transport) that runs reduction hubs or portal axles. Esentially this reduces the pressure on the drive train as the hubs do a lot of the work. Combine that with a 302 Winsor and 40" tyres and massive wheel articulation, their Electronic Traction Control to provide skid steer (like a bob cat), factory lockers and a twin transfercase with something like 127:1 low low first and you have a very serious bit of gear.

The only things that disadvantage it are heigh, weight and width. In short it is massive, the bottom of the doors stand at over 1m off the ground, the rock slider on the side step - here is a pickky

Anyway - they drove a couple of wicked tracks on the weekend - here is an grab from the article on the weekend.

"The 3rd Stage incorporates a cross-slope scramble and two major climbs - the first, CV Rock, is less difficult, and many of the vehicles who reached that point were able to drive it. The last hill - Jackhammer Pass - was deemed virtually impossible to drive, until one of the Queensland Logan Club vehicles, Sam Overton's very heavily modifid Mog-Rover with Tony Robinson at the wheel, demonstrated what good engineering and fearless nerve, supplemented by a little manpower on the snatch can achieve a clean drive.

This feat was enough to outscore his closest rival for outright victory, last year's winner, Gold Eagle Club's Darren Blackburn, but Tony Robinson even shortened Darren's seemingly unassailable time of only 9 minutes - barely half the total 18 minutes allowed to complete the course.

That and the bonus 50 points for driving the Jackhammer left Tony Robinson way out in front as overall solo finisher. Darren Blackburn came away with a well-earned second"

Full Article
'Pecker Sorts the Wood from the Trees

There is more discussion on the topic on
Outerlimits4x4.com here

IMO Tony kicked ass - no-one can deny that - there are some people on Outerlimits whining like spoiled kids - mainly NSW people - saying the mog couldn't have "driven it" without rock stacking or the strap - Sam put it in perspective

"Anybody that thinks that the mog wouldnt be able to drive jackhammer unassisted and no rocks stacked really has no idea of what is drivable. The obstacle wasnt all that hard. The mog drove up there with no run up, a motor that was barely making 100 horse power and without lifting a wheel or hardly spinning a tyre.

If the mog drove in there full noise, skyed the front tyres when they hit the ledge at the top, landed full noise, bounced a few times and scrambled its way to the top spitting out rocks left right and centre then I would agree - it was a tough obstacle and it needed the stacked rocks and the strap. But that didnt happen - it just drove up there first attempt without any trouble at all - check out the video - it doesent get much easier than that.

What, do you guys think that it would diff out or something if the holes wernt filled?? The only reason they stacked the holes or used the strap is because the rules allowed it without penality.

And Im sorry to say that the way most (I could say all here) of the other big rigs tried to drive the obstacle they still wouldnt have a hope in hell of making it if they filled the holes or used the strap. All the other big rigs tried to crawl it and there is no way that they would drive it that way - none of them even looked like driving it.

Tony was the only rig to drive Jackhammer and he drove it easily.

Sam"

I though that was a nice touch - the most impressive thing IMO after reading the entire outerlimits thread about the event was that give all the other competitors
are heading back home to lick their wounds and repair their rigs, the mog broke nothing and has never broken anything. For a 3 year old rock crawler - that must be some sort of record.

The fact it won woodpecker makes me laugh becuase it would be like winning the 2004 Bathurst in a car from 3 years ago - like a VT commodore ! Well done Tony and Sam.

Sam runs Haultech Engineering and sponsers Tony - see here for more info. Haultech Engineering

Air Conditioning

2004-11-30T22:51:00.000+10:00

As Australia comes into so summer our thoughts all go to one thing - Air Conditioning! In Brisbane we get a great mix of heat and humidity which makes living here over Christmas and New Year quite difficult. Our little Queenslander is a gorified weatherboard shack and isn't really setup for the heat - it doesn't have the big verandahs and high roof pitch that helps them stay cool. It does have the right aspect though so prevailing breezes are nice but they are only good till it hits 35 degress.

Last year we scored for free an in-window air con unit that we put in our longue room - we thought it would be too noisy for us in the bedroom and so we installed it. Last year was the hottest Feb on record for Brisbane, the mercury hit 40s regulary and it was killing us. We eventually dragged our mattress out into the living area and slept with the old window wrattler cranking away - when it is 33 degress at 2am it really doesn't matter how noisy the aircon is you sleep like a baby.

Less learned - as first home owners we are of course broke so when I came across another in window unit for $50 it was too good to refuse, a quick strip down and service and I installed in into our bedroom window. No more camping on the living room floor this summer !!

Well that left us in a bit of a bind, you see those units are, well ugly as sin, and we really weren't happy with how it looks, by chance we saw a 1HP split system in Bunnings for $379 with a 5 year warranty and grabbed it. This will fix up the street appeal of the house a bit, keep as cool at night in our bedroom and is a good deal quieter than the old window rattler. Hopefully our neighbours will be happier too.

I know this sounds like false economy but I really did want to buy a big brand name air con unit but the cheapest one that fell into that category was $800 plus fitting which as you all know is so hard to pay of just before christmas so the cheaper unit it is for the time being. No doubt i will be posting up to say how annoying it is to have to get the guy out every year to fix it under warranty so stay tuned !

I am going to do most of the install - hardly challenging really - bolt up two brackets - bolt unit on brackets, find two studs mount internal unit bracket, drill holes in wall (hey I am good at that) run copper pipes (can't be any harder than an LPG install !) and then get the bloke out to vac it out and test it and give it the tick of approval - it will still probably cost us $300 for that !

Well I will let you know how it goes ! Stay cool

Tom

MythTv

2004-11-30T22:44:00.000+10:00

Well,

I have been pretty slack lately and haven't posted much so a few things have been going on. I have been working off and on at getting a box up and running with MythTV on it. I have had a fair bit to do with linux as a server platform over the years but not much in any other form. The manual for this is massive and I find it hard to read through it and pick out the bits I need - Am I the only one that finds that.

What I really needed was a dot point guide to what I needed to do and in what order to get it up and running, then I could refer to the dictionary/manual and work out how to do it. Anyway after about 4 solid hours I got it up and running on my winfast card and a 40Gb hard disk.

This was hardly ideal but it showed me that it would work. I later filled it up with episodes of Seinfeld (we had a marathon last weekend) and it crashed on me.

I rebuilt it on spare 80Gb and we are all good to go - got it reading off my windows network thanks to samba and I can now play episodes of the simpsons and other stuff I have there in avi format. It works like a champ - I need two things though, two ditigal TV tuner cards then I would be really happy - they are running at $125 each -maybe santa will bring me one :)

Marking gauges

2004-11-15T11:24:00.000+10:00

I have always wanted a nice marking gauge - anyone who has done a bit of wood work would know that it is a royal pain having to measure and re-measure and mark lines continually. Say if you are doing serveral cuts of the same size it is much easier to set a marking gauge and scribe a line in the wood you are working. I have never had proper marking guage so I deliberated over serveral at Bunnings (I know don't shoot me - they were "convenient") and eventually picked out a cheaper metal Stanley one.

I used it a bit on the weekend, I only had pine handy so as you could imagine it was easy to mark but hard to cut a nice line in the end of it. It think it will work well especially as a "first" bit of gear - I will learn why I don't like it soon enough !

I have read some threads about hand making these gauges from scratch (some people have talent !) see this thread on the Australian wood working forums. Here is a sample of the work

Seinfeld

2004-11-15T10:57:00.000+10:00

My lovely wife very kindly bought me the 3rd Season of Seinfeld on DVD this weekend. This would be my all time favorite tv show. See here for the official site I must say you get a lot more out of the series when you watch it in sequence. I have seen every episode multiple times but even now I am picking up more and more. An associate of mine at work here described it as "rewarding you for watching" which I think sums it up well.

I mean the weekend was very enjoyable except for the part where I had the flu. Friday night consisted of Air Conditioning - dinner on the couch and watching 10 episodes of seinfeld back to back. Does it get any better !

Found this forum on Seinfeld too

Aussie wood working sites

2004-11-10T16:29:00.000+10:00

I have been looking at doing some more wood working of late. I want to make some furniture for our little house - I love the sense of achievement you get when you finish something and say - Yeah, I made that. Anyway to get organised I was looking for some local forums so I could learn a bit before I rushed out and added to my tool collection.

Aparently I have too many tools - I tried to explain to my wife they are like shoes and handbags - you can never have enough. That just got me a dirty look.

Anyway if you are out there looking for a place to talk about wood working then this is a great spot

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/index.php?

Well, I needed to clean up the garage anyway !

2004-11-10T13:46:00.000+10:00

After days of heavy rain the garage in our little Queenslander finally gave way and suffered from around 4 inches of water through our garage - which felt the need to stay there until some help from my family arrived.

It could have been worse - as anyone who had been under our place can tell you -space is limited down there and there is a lot of stuff under there - tools, parts for range rovers, air conditioners, welders - the list goes on.

I was lucky because most of the things that were on the floor were in plastic containers or crates so they were quite happy - there was a 1500W inverter there
that I hadn't installed so that was a good thing.

All in all 5 hours work got it all cleaned up - filled up a trailer load of wet garbage that has to go to the dump now but like I said - it needed cleaning up
anyway !