Barry

I've worked on a couple of Japanese import Mercedes here. Both had half assed LHD conversions.

And how does the above cope when you turn the steering wheel? @shadow79 I think you should go all out and turn the RAV4 into a half track.

It is sad. Homes, possessions, cars, all contaminated and abandoned. Not to mention the people that lost their lives. It's the Japanese version of Pripyat. Japanese import cars is big business back home in Ireland. When the cars come into the port in Dublin you can still find stickers inside the windscreens of some to say they have passed radioactivity testing. Just makes you realize how serious it all is and it doesn't just affect Japan.

We all know the stories about the abandoned supercars of Dubai. Well here's an interesting article I came across about the abandoned cars of Fukushima that I thought you might enjoy. After the tragic tsunami and ensuing nuclear problems, this is what was left behind. http://juiceboxforyou.com/2015/01/the-abandoned-cars-of-fukushima/

Do you know the joke where the guy gets a long tattoo that says "welcome to Jamaica man have a nice day"? You can google it, I won't post it on a family friendly forum 😂

Locally, I don't know where to get them but I'd imagine some of the specialist radio and accessory shops may have. Have a look on eBay. There's a big selection for under 10 dollars. http://m.ebay.com/sch/i.html?isRefine=true&_nkw=Car radio signal booster&ssPageName=GSTL&_mwBanner=1 I tried one before like in the picture below but this was maybe 15 years ago. I bought a cheap Chinese head unit and the radio was crap so I had to use this. I can't say if it was good or bad, it was so long ago and I can't remember.

Signal boosters/amplifiers are available. They're very compact and will fit behind the head unit. Also pretty easy to install, probably a 10 minute job depending on how difficult or easy it is to remove the head unit. The antenna wire goes in one side and the other side goes to the head unit. Power is supplied by the electric antenna or amplifier remote output on the head unit. They work to an extent but the signal from the transmitter needs to be good to start with. You can't boost what isn't there. I imagine the radio transmitters in UAE will be transmitting on a pretty low wattage as it's a small country and they don't need huge coverage. If you're too far away from the transmitter and the signal is bad to begin with you will just end up with amplified white noise on top of the signal. It's just one of these things you have to install and see if it works for you.

The problem with these plug and play devices is they don't do a proper job. They trick the ECU by sending false signals to it to up the fueling. With these you are running a risk of bore wash amongst other problems. It's better just to get the job done properly.

We all went and got matching tattoos last week

I assume you mean the air valve for the 4wd system? Why did you pull the cable off? Check the fuses. Switch into low range, drive a couple of hundred meters, go back into high and drive another couple of hundred meters. If it doesn't switch off it'll need reset. I have the tool to do it.

Just to add, no offense is being taken on my part, I'm just sharing my personal opinion. Any mechanic should be able to rebuild an engine to dealer spec and where I'm from, that's how it is. It's so simple to measure things like clearances, fastener torque etc and follow the spec sheet or workshop manual procedures, use or don't use the correct sealants in the correct places etc. The reality in UAE is that everyone calls themselves a mechanic but in reality the majority have less wit than a professional apprentice in their first year. They're not mechanics, they just screw things apart without thinking and put them back together covered in silicon and shellac with the most basic understanding of how it should work. These people give us professionals a bad name and drive our salaries down to the floor in competition. They will open an engine with zero diagnostics other than a gut feeling and hope it goes back together without any problems. I find it sad that people will choose a mechanic on price rather than quality of workmanship. In my first job in UAE, I remember the workshop foreman stripping down a VW Golf engine then asking me what was wrong with it after it was stripped and I had no way to do any diagnostic work. Zero knowledge or wit but somehow still made it to foreman. The same foreman shouted at me for cleaning the protective coating off a new brake disc before fitting it. I fitted the rest of the discs without cleaning them and the car came back a few days later with the brake linings cooked. The same guy had a car a leaking ABS pump and covered the leak with epoxy. The car came back a few days later with no brakes. Still, this garage got a lot of work because they were prepared cut corners and do jobs like head gaskets for under 500dhs. No quality of work whatsoever, no measuring of flatness, just send the head for a skim, cover it in shellac and bolt it down with an airgun and hope for the best. This is the sort of thing that is going on in UAE, cable tie and duct tape engineering and customers have no idea other than they are paying a low price for repairs. There is zero theory with these guys, most of them have never even read a book. I have read many books and articles on vehicle repair and I know what I'm doing. All good mechanics are similar. Sometimes I feel sick when I think of all the unpaid time I've spent educating myself on how to be a good mechanic/technician/electrician and end up having to do a job for a quarter of what it's worth just because someone with far less skills than me is being allowed to dictate the market price. I might rant more later when I'm not so busy.

Assuming the crankshaft is the problem (I don't know, I didn't diagnose it) and the top end is known to be good, surely it's better just to replace the faulty part rather than risk an unknown quantity of a second hand engine when the current engine is known to be ok apart from a faulty crank. The crankshaft is incredibly easy to change, you don't even need to remove the cylinder head and disturb the gasket. It can also be done with the engine in the car if the gearbox is removed. It is important to ensure that all bearing caps are properly torqued to manufacturer specification and bearing clearances checked with plastigauge. I recently had a case where a customer didn't want to repair a simple engine fault and instead wanted a replacement engine. By the time I had fitted the third engine it would have been cheaper and less time consuming to address the original problem and the old engine would have been running as good as new. My other concern would be why did the crankshaft fail? Fitting a new one without addressing the cause of failure could lead to the new one failing. Was it a faulty oil pump, blocked gallery or sprayers full of sludge, lack of servicing or just the good old wrong grade of oil, not this 3k, 5k Dubai bs. I assume the mechanic will have checked oil pressures, cleanliness of galleries etc before ordering or fitting any parts?

As a mechanic, a proper rebuild is always better than a replacement engine, and I do stress the word PROPER, not a rebuild full of sand done at the side of the road. When you rebuild an engine, you know what you have and what you're dealing with. When you buy a second hand engine, you're buying someone else's problems and the same potential problem further down the line. You don't know who had the engine before you or how they drove it. There's no reason a mechanic cannot build an engine to factory standard, in fact many mechanics build an engine better than it was when it left the factory. Look at companies like Connaught engines or cosworth for example. Manufacturers engines rebuilt to a higher standard than when they left the factory.

Here you go my friend, full time locked differential for the price of a handful of welding rods. I've had a couple of cars with the rear diff welded. It has its good points and bad points. Good points, you can drift in something with low power. Bad points, it's prone to understeer on corners then sudden oversteer when you're not ready, it's a nightmare to park, your wheel will go eek eek eek when you're reversing into a space and people will stare at you. Good point, you can drift. Im sure you could also engineer a solution with a brake bias valve mounted beside the handbrake to lock either the front or rear wheels with the foot brake. It will let you do huge burnouts too. If you want to get really creative you could use 4 solenoid actuated valves, one for each wheel and put some buttons on the dashboard. There are ways and means, it just depends how much time, effort and money you want to put in.

What a stupid idea. I saw a guy change a bottom pulley before. Put the new pulley on, started the engine and bent nearly every valve.

You can swap some of the parts with Ford Focus stuff.

Congratulations. Keep the shiny side up and the rubber side down.

If the oil is black it's the rear crankshaft oil seal. If it's red it's the gearbox input shaft seal. That's assuming the oil isn't leaking down from the top of the engine, rocker covers etc. Good news is the seals aren't expensive, well under 100 dhs. Bad news is the gearbox has to come out to fix it so expect a labour bill somewhere between 600-1000 depending on the garage. Best to change both seals when the gearbox is out rather than have the other one fail in a few months and have to pay labour charge to remove the gearbox again.

You can metal bumpers under 1000. @DiamondDallas where was that place we where at in Al Awir?

Make sure you get a proper 4 wheel 3D alignment done afterwards. A guy came to me a while back after getting a lift done at a monkey shop, complained that the car was unstable. The problems was massive positive camber like in the picture below. A lot of these people are good at swapping parts but when it comes to setting up, adjustments, anything technical, they haven't got a clue.

That is wrong on so many levels I don't even know where to start. It's basically the same as having a broken exhaust. Some exhaust gases are released before they get to the silencer which is what creates the noise. RTA will fail you for it. The police will fine you for it. There's the risk of fire hazard because of the hot exhaust gases being released under the car instead of out the back. You could end up melting the petrol tank or setting fire to the carpets inside with the heat. There's also the danger of exhaust gases getting into the passenger compartment and poisoning everyone. A guy and his girlfriend died in England in a similar manner a couple of months ago. Here's the story, http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-39339063 Theres full information on the U.K. car forums if you want to read the full story but the guy had done more or less the same as you're suggesting. If you want more noise, get a proper exhaust system. @Gaurav can recommend a shop that custom built a system for his Pajero.

Yes, that is a strut brace. It's generally for cars with a monocoque chassis on road and track. Ive never seen anything like that done on a 4x4 but then again I was never really into 4x4 before.

What? Sounds crazy to me.

I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head. The first reason is safety, the second reason is rigidity. If you push a car hard, then push the same car hard again with a roll cage, you will feel the difference in the corners. A car body has an unbelievable amount of flex and a cage takes this flex out. All the stresses are transferred to the suspension where they should be and the suspension can do its job properly. For fast road use, you can achieve a similar effect without a cage by adding front and rear strut braces. It's a lot cheaper and less intrusive. Seam welding the body shell is another method used to reduce flex and increase rigidity. Ill also add, never drive a caged car without wearing a helmet. Not even for a short journey. When you get flung around in an accident, your head will get badly cracked open on the roof bar. The cage should be padded in areas where your body can impact and a helmet worn to reduce injuries.

I have a lot of good contacts in U.K. and France. Cheap parts are available in the time it takes the scrapyard to remove them. The real question is is the customer prepared to wait for them to come to UAE?