Barry

Dont

@Rahimdad you have already earned legendary status in my eyes. Your trip reports are right up there with some of the best reports I’ve ever read. I always love reading them, it feels like I am there in the moment. I offer advice about repairing cars but you are the original carnity king of the desert. I’m not an off-road guy. I restore cars for a living. I’ve been out with you guys a few times and thank you to @DiamondDallas and @Srikumar for letting me drive your cars. Going off-road scares me. I am scared of rolling down a dune and wrecking a car. It can get expensive fast. I am a short circuit track racer at heart. I love what you guys do and I appreciate your big balls and your fearlessness. You deserve recognition for your long term commitment.

Popups are a pain in the ass. I always browse in private mode because some of my google searches might be erm..... questionable. I like to scroll through carnity sometimes without logging in and it bugs me. But hey, that’s the price to pay. I would like to make a suggestion. Some people should be awarded lifetime legend membership for their dedication and long term commitment to the forum, like @Gaurav @Rahimdad @Srikumar @treks @desertdude amongst others, sorry if I didn’t name someone, it’s just an example. People like this have already cut their corn and should be recognised for it. Personally, I’m happy with my membership level now. @Carnity knows the privileges I have, but not having access to private messages lately has been a blessing in disguise.

Sorry dude, but this isn’t good practice. I primarily work on classic cars so I see the long term effects all the time. Running on water isn’t good and it does affect parts, especially aluminium parts. Unless you’re running distilled water, which I’m pretty sure you aren’t. Coolant with corrosion inhibitors does serve a purpose. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t even recommend ordinary coolant, if fill all the cars here with waterless coolant. Sure, the engine runs a bit hotter but it’s all about the boiling point.

78% nitrogen is all you’ll ever need. I put it in tyres every day and never had a complaint. Heck, I don’t even charge for it.

I guess it depends on how old and farked the tyres are. I’ve put 80-90 psi into old tyres to do burnouts and scrub them off. The real big question should be how big are your balls? Do you really want to put 100+ psi into an old piece of rubber and stand beside it knowing it could blow your legs off if it explodes? Even when I hook up the ac machine after working on something, I hit start and walk away. High pressure gas isn’t something to mess around with. This is why we have things like tyre inflation cages.

Saleem if you can stay out of trouble I’ll become a nun

Meh. It looks like any other modern SUV. There’s nothing special about it. Look at the Citroen Cactus, love it or hate it, you’ll look at it and say that’s a Cactus. Look at this new RAV4 and you’ll blink and miss it.

Good and cheap don’t go in the same sentence when it comes to mechanics.

Backyard Babies. I followed them on tour one summer when I was 18-19. Hellacopters.

Zef. Don’t forget Jack Parow and Little Big.

Rory Gallagher - Shinkicker. One of the best blues/boogie guitarists that ever lived https://youtu.be/GazzTFxXGeE Gary Moore - Out in the fields. Another brilliant guitarist and a nice anti war song https://youtu.be/Nt06PFWkJ1I Thin Lizzy - The boys are back in town. Even Metallica covered them https://youtu.be/quyB8PMTD3o Therapy? - Nowhere. Punk/metal crossover. Became famous for being mixed religion which was taboo at the time. Also opened for Metallica https://youtu.be/5Bcpj-q0Snc Cranberries - Zombie. Deep lyrics you can only understand if you grew up in the occupied part of Ireland. https://youtu.be/6Ejga4kJUts U2 - I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. Song about trying to find god. I don’t get all the hate bono receives. https://youtu.be/e3-5YC_oHjE In the more folk side we have, The Pogues - Dirty old town https://youtu.be/s11BuatTuXk Christy Moore - Ride On https://youtu.be/8J-X0TBZ0sM The Dubliners - Rocky road to dublin https://youtu.be/C1W8KKPmlm4 Then there’s a whole other subset of traditional folk music where they praise the IRA The Wolfe Tones - Come out you Black and Tans. This was a huge meme in Ireland last year https://youtu.be/ORifieiZiP4 Barleycorn - The men behind the wire https://youtu.be/CmpTVe1DrsI Im lucky. I came from a country with a lot of diverse musical history. If I wasn’t fixing cars for a living, I’d probably be sitting in a bar somewhere tonight playing guitar. Music is life.

Like everyone else said, it’s the rear bushings. Differentials in any car rarely give bother unless it’s totally neglected. Then you would see the oil spots on the pavement outside your house.

I’m in. It’s like an annual carnity tradition now. Let’s hope we’re all here and can go see fast and furious 26 together when it comes.

I ran out of blinker fluid on SZR once. Swapping lanes and getting T boned by a Nissan Batrol who ran out of flasher and horn oil at the same time isn’t fun. Maintain your cars!

I love that it looks like a crappy 5 door old Peugeot. But when it comes to the traffic lights, I will push 400 ft/lb and roll so much coal in your face you can’t see where you’re going

I’ve been here for a few years, you have been here for many years. We all know how it works. A little word called wasta. Surprisingly it’s not. They have free flow airflow. The guy who designed them thought about all this.

That hurts. I’ve worked in small garages and I’ve worked in big garages. I’ve charged small prices and I’ve charged big prices but I’ve never ripped anyone off. Price directly relates to the overheads of the garage. Some guy operating out of a room in umm ramool will have small overheads. But some guy operating out of a bigger garage will have bigger overheads. Then you have to remember, most of the guys operating out of smaller garages buy their own visa and work in a shop they can afford to work in. They have no formal training and guess which bolts to screw and unscrew. Even google can’t help these guys. In bigger shops, where people are actually hired for their knowledge, experience and training. So they get paid more. That’s why it costs more. If you want knowledge and experience, it costs money. If you want some guy to do it cheap and say ok ok I know, you get what you pay for. Maybe it will go well, maybe it won’t. I know I’d rather have a trained technician working on my car than some helper that changed a set of brake pads and decided he’s a mechanic now.

It’s a good price for a professional garage. Especially including water pump and thermostat. That’s what I would charge. If you want to go to one of the back street garages you could probably get it done for 2,000-2,500. But in reality, paying an extra £100-150 to someone who knows what they are doing is worth it. It’s a twice in a lifetime thing.

Have this at work. Will be up for sale soon. Twin turbo V8 rock crawler Jeep with 4 wheel steering. Huge lift. Huge tyres. Huge sound system. All built around a WW2 fighter theme. Here’s a shot of the interior and a sneak peek at the bodywork. How many people can say they own a Jeep with twin mini guns on the bonnet? Will post some more pics after the weekend.

I used a system like that a while back to find a pinking cylinder. Had 4 magnetic microphones and a pair of headphones and a switch to change channel. A lot of uses for it, only limited by your imagination. As @Gaurav said, the majority of workshops here are ill equipped. Some don’t even have basic stuff like a multimeter, just a bulb taped to a screwdriver. I’ve been here 3 years and I don’t even think I’ve seen a timing light. I tried to go to a tool store to buy one once and they were like, what’s that, so I had to do my best and set it by ear. Forget about dial gauges and stuff, not going to happen. I got really lucky this time. Started in a new shop that was just taken over. It has a tool room that nobody has ever been in. The previous owner was some rich German guy who ordered one of everything out of the catalog. I spent a couple of hours the other day and my mind was blown by stuff that I was finding. I’ve never even seen some of this stuff in main dealer shops if been in. When was the last time you seen a set of spiral sockets? I’ve hired a good team of guys, the kind of nerds who like to stay up all night on the internet and read stuff, not the kind of guys who learn to change brake pads and decide, ok I’m a mechanic now. So big hopes and dreams of moulding some minds and encouraging thinking outside the box, and it might actually work. There comes a time to say I’m fed up rolling in dung.

I’ve seen cars with a rattle that was so hard to find I almost felt like emptying a can of expanding foam behind the dashboard.

If it’s good enough for a GT40 or Porsche 917 I think it will be ok for a pajero.

Think of Nissan and Infiniti the way people think of Toyota and Lexus and it will make sense.

At least you know what’s rattling. That’s the hardest part. There must be a way of sticking a wedge in without seeing it.